Chapter 1 The Road to Survival

The road to survival...

David dodged bolt after bolt of lightning, maneuvering and trying to quietly close the distance to the mage tower.

However, every time he approached within a hundred meters of the base of the mage tower,

the man on the throne, along with the mage tower, would instantly disappear, reappearing farther away, completely out of his reach.

Damn it...

David suppressed the fire in his heart and forced himself to calm down.

After stepping into the teleportation circle, he had appeared directly in this room, seeing the starry sky and the slowly rising mage tower.

At the time, he had tried to communicate with the shadowy figure on the mage tower, but the other party hadn't given him a chance to speak, launching a magical bombardment without a word.

David belonged to the Special Incident Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and was himself a player in the top tier of the personal combat power rankings. His equipment and skills were enough to deal with all kinds of unexpected situations,

which was how he had barely survived the first wave of lightning strikes.

At the time, he had thought it was a part of the Mount Saint Trial, and that as long as he endured for a while, the danger would naturally disappear.

However, he had been trapped for nearly half an hour, and the lightning strikes showed no sign of stopping. He couldn't find an exit from the room or a switch to stop it all—if they even existed.

Moreover, perhaps because of the lightning strikes, when he tried to communicate with his teammates using the walkie-talkie, he only heard static. He had to be careful and defend himself,

to prevent the lightning from striking the walkie-talkie and losing his only means of long-range communication with his teammates.

"Just now the walkie-talkie connected to Li Risheng... I wonder if they can make it..."

David's mind raced. He stepped on the ground and did a front flip like a gymnast, lightly supporting himself on the ground with his hand.

He flipped over, narrowly avoiding a bolt of lightning that struck almost diagonally.

But the lightning strikes were ultimately too dense.

Another bolt of lightning shot from behind. David was in the air, with nothing to push off from, so he had to take a metal square dog tag from his backpack and clench it in his palm.

Crack—

The lightning struck David directly in the back.

The rectangular dog tag shattered in response, breaking into two pieces, negating the damage caused by the attack.

David's eyes twitched slightly, as if feeling sorry for the item.

The lightning emitted by the mage tower in this room was not like lightning in the real world, fleeting and giving no time to react.

Before the lightning formed, a long, winding, blurry line would appear in the space.

About half a second later, light would appear in the line, and arcing would occur.

That was why David had been able to hold out until now.

Amidst the lightning, he narrowed his eyes, staring intently at every turbid wave in the air.

Finally, he found an opportunity.

Now.

David's breathing suddenly stopped. As he completed the front flip, with his head and feet in position, he swung the Spear of Judgment,

piercing a horizontal bolt of lightning with the tip of the spear.

The Spear of Judgment bloomed with a dazzling golden light, firmly controlling the lightning, forcing it to bend like an arc, gathering beneath David's feet.

Release!

The Spear of Judgment suddenly spun, and the fixed lightning, like a taut bowstring,

launched David out.

The speed and force were so great

that even the man on the mage tower didn't have time to react before David approached within a hundred meters.

Got you...

David's eyes held no emotion. Beneath his charred and cracked skin, pure, majestic power surged, imbued on the Spear of Judgment, which he suddenly hurled.

Whoosh—

The Spear of Judgment, still flickering with residual electricity, easily tore through the ozone-scented air, flying rapidly through the air.

A circle of colorful light lit up at the top of the mage tower. Without even thinking, he knew that these were different function shields specifically set up by magic profession players to avoid being approached by warriors.

However, how could David's Spear of Judgment be so easily stopped?

The golden spear spun forward, penetrating layer after layer of magical shields.

Not only did the shields not stop the Spear of Judgment's advance, but they were plundered of their energy, further accelerating the spear's flight speed.

The Spear of Judgment was a perfect quality weapon, with a total of three special effects.

Special effects one and two were both passively triggered, converting excess kinetic energy applied to the spear into lightning with magic-breaking properties, and automatically returning after being thrown.

Special effect three, called Judgment Divine Lightning, was actively triggered, turning the spear into a remotely controlled ball lightning.

Like now.

The spear, which had penetrated all the magic shields, suddenly compressed and deformed, turning into a cyan ball lightning with a diameter of nearly one meter,

bombarding the man on the throne with unmatched force.

If this attack hit, even opponents at the level of the demon generals encountered in the Lost World would have to die on the spot.

However...

The man on the mage tower, sitting on the dark throne, showed no sign of panic in the face of the rapidly approaching ball lightning.

He simply waved his finger.

Bang—

A square floor tile in front of the dark throne quietly popped open, and a burly gargoyle flew out from it.

This gargoyle was made of unknown stone, shaped like a demon, holding a narrow blade in its left hand and a trident in its right, with wings on its back, exuding a violent, bloodthirsty aura from the inside out.

David's pupils suddenly contracted.

Judging from the energy fluctuations alone, this gargoyle was nothing special.

If he could close the distance, David could even smash it to pieces within ten moves without using the Spear of Judgment.

However, in almost all traditional fantasy world settings, the main purpose of the gargoyle golems kept in mage towers

was not offense, but defense.

The main purpose of the golems in the mage tower was to protect the master of the mage tower.

They often had no intelligence, and neither mental abilities, nor magical damage, nor physical damage could have a very good effect on the golems.

The most powerful moment of the ball lightning formed by special effect three of the Spear of Judgment was the moment of contact with a real object.

If this attack was blocked by the burly gargoyle golem as cannon fodder,

then neither the radiant heat released by the ball lightning, nor the air shockwave,

would be able to inflict full damage on the man in the mage tower behind.

He didn't know if it was an illusion, but at that moment, David actually felt that the man shrouded in shadow sitting on the dark throne slightly raised the corners of his mouth, revealing a smile.

Time seemed to slow down.

From David's perspective, the ball lightning flew slowly forward, about to touch the trident that the gargoyle golem was vertically slashing down with.

And the entire mage tower once again appeared with that familiar and annoying wave.

The overall outline of the mage tower became turbid and blurred, and in the next second, it would flash again, widening the distance from David.

At this critical moment, the gargoyle's head exploded inexplicably.

The huge stone body shattered into several pieces, collapsing to the left, clearing the way for the ball lightning to reach the throne.

Crack.

The gargoyle's remains fell on the floor of the mage tower.

It wasn't until the ball lightning hit the man on the throne that David belatedly heard three gunshots coming from a distance.

Boom!

The ball lightning bloomed with endless light and heat in an instant.

Cyan currents meandered and shot like thousands of slender snakes, illuminating the entire space as bright as day.

After the strike, the starlight in the space gradually dissipated, and the lightning disappeared quietly, as if it had never existed.

David fell downwards, and the Spear of Judgment, which had ended its ball lightning form, automatically flew back into his hand.

The room had returned to its normal shape.

It had a wooden floor, covering an area as large as a football field. Three walls were covered with goose-yellow wallpaper, and one wall was covered with a huge piece of glass, which was covered with dust.

The mage tower that David had fought with for so long quickly shrank,

eventually turning into the size of a vertically placed container—although it was still tall, it was dwarfed by the giant mage tower he had just seen.

The godlike man on the mage tower had also turned into a dry, thin, black corpse,

wearing a blackened robe, hunched over, huddled in a metal seat.

It looked like he had been dead for many years.

Was this all an illusion...?

David subconsciously tightened his grip on the Spear of Judgment. He could clearly feel the muscle soreness and the stinging pain of cracked skin in his body. His suit was torn into strips, hanging loosely on his body.

Doubt spread in his mind.

David temporarily suppressed his confusion and turned to look at the corner of the room, where three teammates had appeared.

"Thanks."

David nodded sincerely. He also realized that the gargoyle that was about to block the ball lightning had been destroyed by Li Ang and the others, who had arrived in time.

Li Ang continuously pulled the trigger of the Colt revolver, instantly firing three bullets, one hitting the gargoyle's head and shattering it.

The other two hit the torso, shattering the limbs, opening a path for the ball lightning to reach the man in the mage tower.

Since the Colt revolver had no rate-of-fire limit, and the bullets hit instantly without a ballistic trajectory,

the three gunshots sounded almost like one.

"Mm."

Li Ang casually put away the Colt revolver and stepped forward with two teammates, looking around along the way, observing the scene in the room.

The four of them gathered and briefly exchanged information.

David had only contacted Li Ang and the others, and had not found any trace of Hohenheim and Amberly.

"This room should be a part of the Mount Saint Trial."

Liu Wudai walked to the corner of the room and carefully observed the wall covered with glass, saying indifferently, "Come and take a look."

The three of them came to the wall.

The glass did not completely match the entire wall. There was a gap of half a meter on the left and right sides of the room.

Standing there and looking at the interlayer between the glass and the wall, they could vaguely see some intermittently flashing lights.

"These lights are... mystical patterns?"

Ding Zhensai used the sensor of the Kui Niu mecha to scan the narrow gap between the glass and the wall, and said in confusion, "The original function of these patterns

is to stimulate the fear emotions of the intruders, causing them to produce the scenes they least want to see.

But it seems to have been modified?"

Although Ding Zhensai's security level in the Special Affairs Bureau was not very high,

the memory chip of the Kui Niu mecha he drove recorded quite a lot of content.

It covered almost everything from astronomy and geography to mystical books—the memory chip and the spirit part of the Kui Niu mecha were isolated from each other, which could prevent it from being swallowed by the spirit.

Moreover, even if the spirit was restless and took over control, the memory chip would actively dissolve and self-destruct to prevent the theft of secrets.

In a sense, Ding Zhensai was really just an attachment of the Kui Niu mecha's driver, mainly responsible for making it move, and all the other details were solved by intelligent AI...

Li Ang glanced at the patterns in the gap and rubbed his palms.

He had been collecting mystical books in the mall and auction houses all along, and he would usually browse posts on the forum.

However, the quality of this kind of content was definitely not high. Not only was it empty, but there was also the risk that the authors of the books themselves were ignorant and misled others.

It was definitely not as thorough as the operators in the Special Affairs Bureau, Clock Tower, and Different Societies.

However, his divine power and divine sense could make up for the shortcomings in intelligence gathering.

Divine sense quietly swept across the mage tower, and the feedback made Li Ang a little surprised.

"The man on the mage tower died at about the same time as Theresa.

And from the shape of the bones, it corresponds exactly to the murals we saw in the underground palace, as well as the content recorded by Theresa in her diary."

Li Ang paused and said slowly, "This corpse should belong to Solomon, the young blonde mage with a shorter stature in Theresa's hero team."

David asked in confusion, "Solomon? Who is that?"

Li Ang gave a brief introduction and handed Theresa's diary to David to see if he could find anything in it.

"According to Theresa's description in her diary, Solomon's magical talent is among the best in the world.

He has an unmatched talent for the magic of the faction. He understands it at a glance, and learns it as soon as he learns it. Although he is more lazy and casual in personality, he is not as diligent and hardworking as other mages,

he still obtained the special mage certificate awarded by the Mage Guild before the age of twenty—only seven people in the entire history of civilization have had such an honor."

Li Ang said casually, "Well... this kind of setting comparable to Long Aotian does give me the feeling of dreaming back to more than ten years ago, in the early fantasy novels, where the protagonist has the top elemental affinity of all magic factions."

"In other words, he's a rare genius, right?"

David drank a bottle of magic potion, causing the charred skin on his body to naturally fall off. Then he took out a suit from the backpack that looked exactly the same as the one just now, and put it on. "Then why did he die here?

And he's sitting on the mage tower, deliberately staying in this space that can create fear illusions."

"The Iron Maiden torture device I encountered when I teleported in, the aggregate of arms patrolling in the layers, and this mage Solomon..."

Li Ang narrowed his eyes and said slowly, "Why do I feel that Theresa, Solomon, and the others

don't want later players to continue climbing Mount Saint and complete the trial?"