Chapter 2 Two Strange Monsters

Two bizarre monsters, two utterly different powers, their howls fought and twisted in mid-air, blooming, transforming from formless sounds into tangible harm.

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

Countless erosion marks appeared on the tree monster, spreading from its trunk to the branches above. These marks were like wounds that could not heal, and they continued to deepen the damage to the tree monster.

It looked like a perfect situation where both monsters would perish together. However, darkness descended unseasonably…

In an instant, a pitch-black darkness enveloped the five people's vision. This darkness could swallow everything, shroud all things, whether indoors or outdoors, even if the light source was close at hand, it was useless.

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

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

When this sentence ended, the darkness immediately passed, and the crowd's eyes regained their brightness. 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 was becoming more and more obvious on its body. Its branches were falling off and turning into ashes.

"Are you the inferior god that voice mentioned just now?" Feng Bujue actually stepped forward to talk to the monster.

Before the other four could react, the tree monster had already opened its mouth to answer, "Humans… find the keys and 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.

"Samodier… one of the servants of the Lord of Time. 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 already turned into ashes, and its trunk had also begun to turn into dust. "A centipede dies but never falls down… Samodier did not surrender, he used all his remaining strength to draw this city out of 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 escape the Lord of Time's sanctions, he summoned the Demon Gate. Once the seal on that gate is unlocked, allowing the city to be connected to the Demon Realm, it means that this place has become the territory of the Chief of All Demons, and the Lord of Time will have no jurisdiction."

"A portion of the humans reached an agreement with Samodier: as long as they helped him unlock the seal on the gate, their lives would be spared. But the moment the demons poured out of the gate, Samodier immediately abandoned those people, greedily swallowing all the humans in the city into darkness before the demons could snatch them away."

"Only a few survivors successfully escaped from the Demon Gate with two keys." The tree monster had almost completely withered at this point, but it still insisted on continuing, "Samodier 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 that the result of this kind of plot would probably be that this NPC-like monster would kick the bucket just when it came to the crucial part.

"The one who holds the Wood Key died underground…" the tree monster replied. "I have opened a path, when I die, you can go down…" Its mouth finally crumbled into dust as well, and 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 had died, the big hole it had smashed through the ground became an entrance to an underground passage.

[Current Task has been changed, Main Task has been updated]

After the prompt sounded, the task displayed in the task bar had changed to: [Enter the passage, find the Wood Key]

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

The others were still a little dazed after listening to such a long plot and stood still. After a few seconds, Wang Tanzhi was the first to ask: "Uh… Brother Jue, what's going on? Can you translate it for me?"

Feng Bujue had already walked towards the area on the first floor that sold daily necessities: "After the 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 followed behind Feng Bujue while listening to his narration. "Seeing that it was likely going to die soon, I seized the time to ask those three questions. It also fulfilled its due responsibility as an NPC. After contributing a battle scene, it explained the plot, gave hints, provided a path, and then tragically took its lunch box."

He walked to a fallen shelf, casually picked up a packaging box from the ground, and拆边道 said while拆边道: "According to what the big tree said… only those near the keys or the Demon Gate will not disappear like other humans in the city. This explains the situation in the police station and also indicates that the Wood Key is not in this shopping center, which is empty of corpses."

"Also… I think the few of us are exceptions, perhaps because we are players, so we don't belong to the category of 'humans' in this space-time, otherwise, we would have been erased by Samodier as soon as we entered the script."

Feng Bujue paused for a second and then said, "To talk about the current situation, it's actually very clear… that is, the big Boss of this script will strengthen the demons on the entire map once every thirty minutes or so through the darkness. He himself probably won't 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 those who can use the keys. At that time, this space will be forever connected to the Demon Realm. As long as he hides here, the Lord of Time will not be able to hunt him down."

"And our method to clear the game is to find the two keys, return to the front of 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 Lord of Time will be able to intervene and tear Samodier to pieces."

"This world view is unheard of…" Wang Tanzhi said.

Feng Bujue had already found several flashlights, this time they were intact, but there were no batteries inside: "These can all be used, everyone take two, just in case, and find a few batteries." He added, "Oh, right, I saw ice hockey sticks, baseball bats, golf clubs, etc. in the sports goods area… that kind of thing shouldn't have any equipment requirements, we can each take one."

In this way, the five armed themselves. This time, everyone had at least one cold weapon of ordinary quality in their hands. Loneliness also found a Western-style kitchen knife in the kitchen supplies area that was slightly longer than the fruit knife in Wang Tanzhi's hand, and everyone took one. Little Tan finally淘汰了 that fruit knife he had gotten in the novice tutorial.

Only Long Aotian did not choose a Western-style kitchen knife with a long and narrow blade. He took a Chinese-style cleaver, and it was the kind of particularly heavy bone-chopping knife. It seemed that he felt that this kind of weapon with a sense of weight was more reliable and suitable.

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

When they first entered the underground, they felt that the surroundings were still very narrow, the ground was all dirt, the road ahead was a slope, and there was no light 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 path from a certain section of the sewer to the underground of the shopping center. The next road was the one that the person holding the Wood Key had taken. Since the tree had clearly hinted that the holder had "died" below, the possibility that some kind of monster was lurking in this sewer was probably very high.

The cylindrical sewer gave people a strange sense of oppression. The surrounding space seemed to be constantly shrinking, of course, this was just an illusion. The truly unpleasant sensory experience was the foul smell here, and the unwatchable dirty things floating in the water underfoot. The lonely girl's face had been very ugly since she came down. She held a flashlight and looked ahead, completely not illuminating the things under her feet, and followed behind the lonely young man.

Long Aotian held a shield in one hand and a baseball bat in the other, walking at the front of the team. If any monster suddenly darted out, he would definitely swing a flurry of random blows at it in the first instant. If the bat failed to kill it, he would then use the cleaver to deliver a finishing blow. Feng Bujue and Wang Tanzhi walked in the middle of the team, ready to support Long Aotian at any time.

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

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

"Look at that." Long Aotian suddenly stopped and said, "It's right there, that corpse."

Feng Bujue stretched his neck, making his line of sight higher than Long Aotian's shoulder, and found that the distance of more than ten meters ahead was the end of this section of the sewer. A closed iron gate blocked the road, and the water continued to flow forward from the gap at the bottom of the gate. There, in the corner, the light of the flashlight illuminated a corpse.