Chapter 2: New Century (Epilogue)
After dealing with the Diamond X Frogs, Xi Wei immediately logged this behavior in the system and updated the players’ conduct rules. Soon, a group of frog players who imitated [Hentai@Frog] found that they could no longer dig. Even players who transformed into snakes or loaches couldn’t dig anymore. However, it didn’t matter, as they quickly came up with new tricks. Since they couldn’t dig into humans, they decided to dig into other animals.
Xi Wei only learned about this later, finding it both amusing and exasperating, but he didn’t intervene further.
Similar incidents occurred in nature, but players had increased their probability.
Besides, this kind of thing wasn’t really fun. Animals had different structures than humans; they could only dig into certain areas, and wasn’t it smelly?
These players did it to earn money.
Everyone watched out of curiosity. There would be no more similar live streams in the future, so they naturally stopped digging.
Afterward, Xi Wei began to address the rat infestation problem in Winter City.
The player who had been brought up had become the Rat King of Winter City, growing larger than a cat. Under Xi Wei’s warning, he agreed to coexist peacefully with the cats in Winter City, causing no trouble for each other. Of course, to show encouragement and compensation to this player, Xi Wei ordered the Star Mages to teach him a meditation technique. Before long, he might become a Rat King who could use magic.
Finally, there was the incident of the Slime attacking the women’s restroom in Winter City.
There was nothing more to say about this matter. All the involved Slimes were kicked out of the game!
If they would attack a women’s restroom, what else could these useless beings do?
With the joint actions of the King of Winter and the system, coupled with the launch of the automatic ban system, nearly ten thousand of the original fifty thousand Winter City players were banned and logged out. The bans ranged from 3 days to 999 years, depending on the severity of their offenses.
Other cities had even more players banned.
It wasn’t even the second day of the open beta.
A group of banned players began to attack the game’s official channels on the forum again.
However, all their efforts were in vain, as the official authority on the Cain Continent was Xi Wei and the system.
And they never looked at the forum.
It was merely a place for players to entertain themselves.
“Host, some players who were disqualified from the game have been recruited by the Abyss. Is that alright?”
Xi Wei leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes to rest, too lazy to even open them. He replied calmly, “What problem could there be? Trash should stay in the trash can!”
…
Three days after the open beta, with the ban system online and more and more rules being added to the ban system through patches, the once unrestrained players became much more well-behaved.
Xi Wei showed no mercy to anyone.
If he happened to pass by a place and heard players complaining that the game wasn’t free enough, that this and that were restricted, and so on, he would immediately ban them offline and confine them for half an hour.
The reason given was “inappropriate speech.”
These past few days, Xi Wei had come to realize one thing: one could not show any mercy to players.
They were a bunch of crafty individuals who would take advantage of any leniency.
…
Meanwhile, on Blue Star.
Deep sea.
Cthulhu, who had been silent for a long time, opened its eyes again.
Its dim eyes gazed like two abysses into the pitch-black deep sea.
Compared to before, it could now feel countless consciousnesses roaming within its “dreams.”
It could contact any life consciousness within the “dream” at any time and cause them to fall completely. This was thanks to the pyramid-style infiltration plan it had been implementing during this period.
Following a plan of high infection at the tip of the pyramid, followed by gradual reduction, this method was not only easy to control but also unlikely to cause societal collapse.
After all, many low-level infected individuals might only experience occasional hallucinations or auditory illusions.
In today’s highly stressful human society, how common were auditory and visual hallucinations?
Most people would simply attribute it to fatigue from work. Even seeking medical help would be meaningless, as this wasn’t a mental problem but an invasion from the depths of the soul.
Most importantly, low-level infections were not intercepted by the Blue Star Will or the Cain Will.
This was because it was too concealed.
Among these consciousnesses that it had designated within the “dream,” a significant portion could not be directly infiltrated. They had two layers of barriers.
The thinner layer drew its strength from the Blue Star, very faint, almost broken.
The thicker layer originated from Cain.
And these protected consciousnesses were the so-called “Players.”
It could only infiltrate the bodies of these players on Blue Star.
However, it was difficult to subtly infiltrate their divine souls under the protection of the two barriers and transform them from the inside out into deep cultists. If it forcibly attempted such a transformation, it would inevitably alert the two planetary wills, and the “Players” would all be kicked out, causing its plan to fail.
But there was one method that would prevent the two wills from becoming vigilant.
And at the same time, achieve its desired outcome.
That was to cooperate from within and without.
Allow the Old Ones’ infection on the Cain Continent to trigger the hidden contamination on the “Players.” At that point, the two barriers would crumble on their own, and the players could directly transition from shallow contamination to deep cultists, like a bomb suddenly detonated.
Of course, infecting these players was just the most basic step.
Cthulhu’s ultimate goal was to use this as a stepping stone to unite with other Old Ones and eliminate the most troublesome existences behind Cain and Blue Star.
It was almost time to start executing the plan…
It tilted its head back, gazing at the viscous sea surface that resembled a swamp. Its tentacles swayed gently, followed by countless expanding bubbles that surrounded it. Initially, they were just ordinary bubbles, but as they grew larger, they actually formed the shape of planets.
Cthulhu moved its massive body among the endless planetary bubbles, like a giant roaming in the universe. Finally, it approached two planets. These two planets were far apart but were enclosed within the same medium-sized bubble. Besides them, there were other planets in this bubble, but they all appeared dim, as if the lights were turned off. Only Cain and Blue Star were lit.
“Nilgh’ri mgep dependents lurking ph’nglui n’ghft nilgh’rishuggogg, hai h’ ah yar l’ launch mgehye’bthnk, ymg’ mgah’n’ghft presence…”
A cold and obscure muttering emanated from Cthulhu’s surroundings, spreading out into the “universe.” Gradually, terrifying figures began to emerge from the dark side of the “universe.” They were divided into two parts, and in fact, they had completely surrounded both Blue Star and Cain.
