Chapter 19 The Inconvenient Darkness

Two bizarre monsters, two distinct powers; their howls fought and twisted in mid-air, blooming, transforming from formless sounds into tangible damage.

The demon's body was torn apart, like an animal being devoured by piranhas. The flesh and bones beneath its grey-black skin were exposed. It was gradually stripped of its flesh, leaving only a skeleton, which fell to the ground, scattering into fragments.

Countless erosion marks appeared on the tree monster's body, spreading from its trunk to the branches above. These marks were like unhealable wounds, continuously deepening the damage to the tree monster.

The situation was rapidly evolving into a desirable outcome where both monsters would perish together. However, darkness descended, inconveniently…

A pitch-black darkness instantly engulfed the five people's vision. This darkness could swallow everything, envelop all things. Whether indoors or outdoors, even if a light source was close at hand, it was of no use.

This time, the complex and terrifying sounds did not ring out in the darkness, but this was clearly unrelated to the fact that they were covering their ears with their hands, because a few seconds later, a very clear whisper still entered everyone's ears.

"Meddlesome lesser god, you will pay the price for this…"

As the sentence ended, the darkness immediately passed, and light returned to everyone's eyes. They stood up and faced the withered tree, wanting to see what kind of mutation this monster would undergo.

Feng Bujue was the first to notice the anomaly. The tree did not seem to have become stronger at all. On the contrary, the damage it had just suffered became increasingly obvious. Its branches were falling off, turning to ashes.

"Are you the lesser god that voice mentioned?" Feng Bujue actually stepped forward to speak to the monster.

Before the other four could react, the tree monster opened its mouth and replied, "Humans… find the key, restore the seal."

"We have already found the Fire Key," Feng Bujue said. "What exactly happened to this city? Who is the culprit behind all this? Where is the Wood Key?" He asked three questions in a row.

"Samodir… one of the servants of the Time Lord. He betrayed his master, so he was stripped of his divine power and exiled in the endless River of Time…" The tree monster's branches had almost completely turned to ashes, and its trunk was also beginning to turn into dust. "A centipede, though dead, still stirs… Samodir did not surrender. He used up his remaining strength to extract this city from reality and hide it here. This place is no longer a part of the River of Time… but a puddle independent of the river." The bark on the tree monster's face had also begun to peel off. "In order to avoid the Time Lord's sanction, he summoned the Demon Gate. Once the seal on that gate is unlocked, allowing the city to connect with the Demon Realm, it will mean that this place has become the territory of the Head of All Demons, and the Time Lord will have no jurisdiction.

"A portion of humanity reached an agreement with Samodir. As long as they helped him unlock the gate's seal, their lives would be spared. But the moment the demons poured out of the gate, Samodir immediately abandoned those people, and greedily swallowed all the humans in the city into darkness before the demons could fight over them."

"Only a few survivors successfully escaped from the Demon Gate with two keys," the tree monster said, already nearing complete decay, but it still insisted on continuing, "Samodir himself cannot touch the keys or the seal, nor can he devour humans near these two things, but the demons can… So he promised those demons that at the end of each 'Cycle', he would give them a portion of his power through the darkness, on the condition that the demons find and kill all the living people in the city to ensure that no one can restore the seal…"

"Where is the Wood Key?" Feng Bujue asked again. He had a very bad feeling. The result of this kind of scene was likely that this NPC-like monster would kick the bucket right when it was about to say the key part.

"The one holding the Wood Key died underground…" the tree monster replied. "I have already opened the way. After my death, you can go down…" Its mouth finally turned to dust and crumbled. A few seconds later, from the trunk to its roots extending into the ground, everything shattered into black powder in an instant.

Although the tree monster was dead, the large hole it had crashed into the ground became an entrance to an underground passage.

[Current Mission has been changed, Main Quest has been updated]

After the prompt rang out, the mission displayed in the mission bar had changed to: [Enter the passage and search for the Wood Key]

Feng Bujue turned his head and looked at the others. "Let's go to the household goods shelves first to see if there are any flashlights before we go down."

The others had just listened to such a large chunk of plot and were still a little dazed, frozen in place. After a few seconds, Wang Tanzhi was the first to ask, "Uh… Bro Jue, what's going on? Can you translate?"

Feng Bujue had already walked towards the area on the first floor that sold household goods. "After that duel just now, plus that sentence in the darkness, I realized that this tree is not on the same side as the other monsters we've seen so far." The four of them followed behind Feng Bujue, listening to his narration, "Seeing that it was likely not going to live long, I quickly asked those three questions. It also fulfilled the duties it should have as an NPC, contributing a battle scene, explaining the plot, providing a hint, and opening up a path, before dramatically kicking the bucket."

He walked to a fallen shelf, casually picked up a box on the ground, and started to open it as he said, "According to what the big tree said… only those near the key or the Demon Gate would not disappear without a trace like the other humans in the city. This explains the situation at the police station, and also indicates that the Wood Key is not in this empty shopping center.

"Also… I think we are exceptions. Perhaps because we are players, we do not belong to the 'human' category in this space-time, otherwise we would have been erased by Samodir as soon as we entered the script."

Feng Bujue paused for a second, then continued, "To talk about the current situation, it's actually very clear… that is, the big Boss of this script will use darkness to strengthen the demons on the entire map once every thirty minutes or so. He himself may not show up, he may not even have a 'physical body', but the demons are constantly threatening us.

"The Boss's goal is to kill off the people who can use the keys. At that time, this space will forever be connected to the Demon Realm. As long as he hides here, the Time Lord will not be able to hunt him down.

"And our method of clearing the game is to find the two keys, return to the Demon Gate, and try to restore the two unlocked seals on the gate. After success, this space will no longer be connected to the so-called 'Demon Realm', and that guy called the Time Lord will be able to intervene and tear Samodir to pieces."

"This worldview is unheard of…" Wang Tanzhi said.

Feng Bujue had already found a few flashlights. This time they were intact, but there were no batteries inside. "These can all be used, everyone take two, just in case. Let's find some batteries." He added, "Oh, right, I saw ice hockey sticks, baseball bats, golf clubs, etc. in the sports goods area… those kinds of things shouldn't have any equipment conditions. We can each take one."

In this way, the five people armed themselves. This time, everyone had at least one cold weapon of ordinary quality. Jimo even found a Western-style kitchen knife in the kitchenware area that was a few inches longer than the fruit knife in Wang Tanzhi's hand, and everyone took one. Xiao Tan finally eliminated the fruit knife he had obtained in the beginner's tutorial.

Only Long Aomin did not choose a Western-style kitchen knife with a longer and narrower blade. He took a Chinese cleaver, and it was the kind of extra-heavy bone chopper. It seemed that he felt that this kind of weapon with a sense of weight was more reliable and handy.

Doing all this had taken nearly ten minutes. Considering that there might still be monsters underground, and the time limit of the darkness, the group did not continue to delay. Led by Long Aomin, they entered the passage.

When they first entered the underground, they felt that the surroundings were very narrow, and there was only dirt under their feet. The road ahead was a slope, and there were no lights below. However, after walking for a while, they came to a relatively spacious sewer where people could stand up straight. It seemed that the tree monster had only opened up a passage between a certain section of the sewer and the basement of the shopping center. The road ahead was the one that the person holding the Wood Key had walked. Since the tree had clearly hinted that the holder had "died" below, the possibility of some kind of monster lurking in this sewer was probably very high.

The cylindrical sewer gave people a strange sense of oppression, as if the surrounding space was constantly shrinking. Of course, this was just an illusion. The truly terrible sensations were the foul smell here, and the unspeakable dirty things floating in the water under their feet. Ever since she came down, Jimo's face had been very unsightly. She held up her flashlight and looked ahead, completely avoiding shining it on the things under her feet, following behind Brother Lonely.

Long Aomin held a shield in one hand and a baseball bat in the other, walking at the front of the team. If any monsters suddenly jumped out, he would definitely start swinging wildly at the first moment. If the stick didn't kill them, he would then use his cleaver to finish them off. Feng Bujue and Wang Tanzhi walked in the middle of the team, ready to support Long Aomin at any time.

This section of the sewer only had one passage. The tunnel they had entered from on the left had been buried, and only some gaps and small pipes on the wall still had water flowing in. Therefore, the possibility of monsters attacking from behind was very small, making it relatively safe for Lonely and Jimo to walk at the rear.

The group proceeded in this manner for five or six minutes.

"Look at that." Long Aomin suddenly stopped and said, "Right there, that corpse."

Feng Bujue stretched his neck, making his line of sight higher than Long Aomin's shoulder, and discovered that a dozen meters ahead was the end of this section of the sewer. A closed iron gate blocked the way, and the water continued to flow forward from the gaps at the bottom of the gate. In that corner, the light from the flashlight illuminated a corpse.