Chapter 506: First Anniversary Celebration
In the northeastern part of Saint Turis Territory, there is a wasteland about six or seven kilometers away from the public road in and out of the territory.
The ground under Yang Qiu's feet at this moment was full of traces of battle.
The wildly growing trees and shrubs fell down in large numbers as if they had been swept by a tornado. The waist-high lush vegetation was either rolled up in large pieces, or was flattened into a white ground, or was missing in large areas as if it had been gnawed by some monstrous beast, exposing the bumpy and gravelly surface.
The humus, insect carcasses, and beast feces that were hidden among the vegetation after withering in the autumn and winter of last year were exposed to the scorching sun in the summer, giving off a pungent smell that was far from fresh and sweet; it lingered with the burnt smell of plants burned by magic and the mist from the evaporated moisture on the ground, wandering leisurely and scattered in the low-lying areas of the wilderness.
But other than that... there were no remaining clues - Yang Qiu used his mental power to search carefully several times, but did not sense even the slightest bit of strange aura.
"...Enwei, you didn't have time to see 'Him' clearly?"
"If I look directly at His form, you may not see me again for several years. No, maybe when I appear again, there will be no one like you in the material plane anymore."
Envy got another azalea badge from Rex, saving the trouble of passing the message. Obviously, the lich was in a bad mood at the moment, and his words were harsher than usual, and his tone was quite irritable : "Also, you probably misunderstood something... I should be the one asking you this question, what the hell is that thing? What the hell did you provoke?!"
"Calm down, Enwei." Yang Qiu calmly conveyed the message, "So... were you the first to discover that 'Him' had a similar aura to mine?"
"Of course, you are underestimating my perception?"
"Really... Enwei, when did you remember my 'breath'?"
"Don't treat me like a fool, Yang." Enwei's sneer came through the matrix. "I am a dark magician. Your magic always carries a suffocating stench. Others may find it difficult to detect, but I am not so slow."
"Is that so? You and I are both dark magicians. You are more sensitive to the discordant parts of my magic and will remember this special 'smell'." Yang Qiu said slowly, "It's just that you think it has nothing to do with you and you have no interest in delving into it, so you never pointed it out. This is indeed your style... Anyway, you reminded me, and I have to formally thank you for this."
Enwei was silent for a while, then took off the azalea badge and refused to contact Yang.
"It seems that the emotion in my words made him unhappy... Well, it's my fault."
Yang Qiu muttered something, summoned a bone dragon, and flew into the air.
Yang Qiu was well aware that he had an unshirkable responsibility for being slow to respond to this crisis.
It was only after he took the initiative to display the power of the evil god that Brother Lowell realized that there was an element of unknown origin in his power; there were no black magicians among the court wizards, so naturally they could not detect the abnormality in his magic power.
Kingsley, who is also a black magician, is the most likely to find out something is wrong, but when Kingsley and Yang Qiu first met, he already knew that Yang Qiu would occasionally travel across dimensions to another magic-free dimension; this little old man who has lived in seclusion all his life would never get involved in any events related to the ancient gods, and his knowledge of the evil gods' aura is almost non-existent. It is natural that he would think that the difference in his magic power is only due to the influence of the different world rules of the two dimensions.
When the "Eternal Sleeper" followers were causing trouble in Dutata City, the national team hoped to ask Kingsley, who was helping Yang Qiu "look after the house", to help out a little, but this steady guy rejected Zhao Zhenzhen on the spot without mercy (see Chapter 363)...
With so
The number of black magicians is far less than that of spellcasters of his type. If Enwei had not suffered a great loss this time and questioned him, Yang Qiu would not know when he would have noticed this problem.
"Anyway, the current situation is... there is something with a similar aura to me that has come to Shijia."
"The power projected by the ancient gods into the material plane does attract each other. This thing is obviously coming for me."
"'He'... no, it should be him. He can perfectly disguise himself as a passerby that even Enwei cannot see through. He is more like a believer who has obtained the 'favor of God' rather than an assimilated 'God's messenger', just like those believers who hide in the city."
"The only problem is that this guy is too strong. He is so strong that even a lich like Enwei is almost powerless to fight back. He may be even stronger than me. This is not a level that an unassimilated 'believer' can reach."
There is a price to pay for borrowing the power of the ancient gods. Even the Pope of an evil cult who is trapped in greed will always find ways to stay sane and resist losing control. Because once he gives up maintaining mental stability, he will be deprived of control by the "source of power" in his own soul, and after gaining a brief experience of being a strong man (becoming a messenger of God), no trace will be left.
It is truly extraordinary to display power at the level of a divine messenger while maintaining a stable mental state...at least it cannot be explained by Yang Qiu's knowledge of mysticism.
"Well, let's not worry about this guy's origins for now. The important thing is... this person must have come because of me. There is no doubt about that."
The bone dragon that Yang Qiu was riding took off into the air and flew straight towards Delburg.
"It's easy to guess his purpose. Since I have the same ancient god power as him, devouring my soul will make him even more powerful."
"You can read in the newspapers that I killed the messenger of God. Since he is a rational enemy, he will naturally know it... But because the newspapers did not publish the details, he is not sure whether I have the means to threaten him."
"The existence of the players also played a confusing role. The power of the ancient gods that he and I possessed did not include the power to control this kind of 'army of intelligent undead'."
"So... he must find a way to find out my true strength, or find a chance that allows him to approach me when I am defenseless."
"In the past few years, I have only been active in the Rhine. Most of the people who have close contact with me, who may know my true strength and can approach me when I am off guard, also stay in the Rhine. So... Brother Lowell, who left the Rhine and returned to Shiga at the beginning of the year, is the best target!"
"In order not to alert the enemy, he did not take the shortcut of Tarantan, but took a detour from the west, so he ran into Envy halfway; in order to be able to approach Lowell as quickly as possible, this guy must have spent a lot of time learning how to disguise himself as a seemingly harmless traveler..."
The more Yang Qiu tried to sort out his thoughts, the uglier his expression became.
He had clearly discovered there existed a wild sect in Tachia that worshipped the ancient god of rules that anchored him!
He was confident that he could handle any trouble that dared to come to him, whether it was the sliced consciousness or the believers of God, he had the confidence to make the other party unable to return...but he ignored the fact that the enemy might still have reason and would adopt tactics!
This made Yang Qiu quite annoyed... Not to mention his friendship with Lowell, the fact that people around him got into trouble because of him was even worse than Yang Qiu suffering the loss himself.
Of course, no matter how angry Yang Qiu was, he would not lose his mind. While riding on the bone dragon, Yang Qiu immersed his mind into the matrix and sent a notice to the current online players:
"[System Announcement]"
“Dear players: Due to the feedback from many players on the forums that the one-year anniversary celebration was not held in the game, we are deeply regretful. After urgent discussion, the development team decided that it is better to hold the anniversary celebration today.”
"First Anniversary Celebration"
"At 14:00 in the afternoon of today, online players who accept and complete the Undead Chamber of Commerce missions and professional guild missions will receive double the Chamber of Commerce reputation and professional guild reputation rewards."
“During the event, online players who hunt ghost monsters, kill large beasts or all levels of Warcraft monsters within the NPC main city map will receive double territory reputation.”
“During the event, players participating in the Queen’s Journey world quest can exchange NPC captives for double territory reputation.”
"During the event, all equipment items sold by the Chamber of Commerce NPCs in the main cities (including special equipment that requires territory reputation) will be discounted by 30%, and the game coins required to purchase and the territory reputation deducted will be reduced by 30%."
"——"Otherworld" game production team."
When the bold, bright yellow announcement flashed across the information columns of all online players... it was 1:50 p.m. in the other world, which was 9 p.m. on Earth.
This time period is the peak time for players to be online, but it is impossible for all 33,000 players to be online. There will always be people who are not online because they have something to do in real life, or they have to play other games with friends, or have dinner with family. Under the "teleportation points" of each main city, there are thousands of "player characters" in standby mode.
As soon as the announcement was made, online players began to curse the production team for not following common sense and suddenly launching the anniversary celebration without any prior information. This was especially true for those players who had their eyes on a certain expensive piece of equipment but did not have enough territory reputation and game coins… How could they gather up the 30% off reputation and money in such a short time? !
Despite the scolding, these players still very honestly rushed to various task distribution points, or hurriedly formed teams, devoted themselves to killing monsters in the wild, or hurriedly ran to participate in large-scale battlefield activities...
Many players rushed to nearby teleportation points, logged off and notified their friends and family to log on quickly, so as not to miss out on the game anniversary celebration with such a big discount...
When Yang Qiu flew over Delburg, the number of online players exceeded 33,000, only a few decimal points away from 100% online rate...
