During the several encounters and clashes before this, although D had suffered some degree of blows, those blows had at most only caused slight fluctuations in his emotions.
After all, for a powerful and arrogant existence like D, ordinary setbacks were very difficult to truly shake the pride and arrogance deep in his heart.
But the moment he personally witnessed those creatures showing a firm attitude of willingly giving up their own lives for Xu Yuan, his state of mind underwent a dramatic change.
In such a situation, D's psychological defenses completely collapsed.
All along, what he had longed for was never the so-called identity of a creator god. What he truly desired was the sincere faith given to him by others when he stood in that supreme position.
He desperately wanted to become someone admired by all people, and he deeply longed to bathe in those gazes filled with reverence, admiration, and even worship.
Because of this obsession, when he faced the scene before him, an uncontrollable sense of defeat surged up in his heart.
Back then, the real HIM had also been a great existence respected by the world, and at that time there were indeed many creatures willing to give their precious lives for the real HIM.
But most of those who were willing to sacrifice themselves had either received help from the real HIM or were his close followers.
So D did not feel too much jealousy toward the real HIM. He believed that if he had been in the real HIM's position, he would certainly have done even better and gained the admiration of even more people.
But looking at Xu Yuan's situation now, things were completely different.
The creatures D had painstakingly captured almost had no emotional connection with Xu Yuan at all. To be more precise, among all those creatures, most of them had never even seen Xu Yuan before.
They had only had a few brief interactions with some of the people under Xu Yuan in the past.
Yet surprisingly, it was exactly such a group of creatures who had no deep bond with Xu Yuan that were willing to abandon their extremely precious lives to protect him.
And D knew very well that these creatures were not special cases. They represented the vast number of ordinary people.
The determination deep in their hearts was exactly the reflection of the common will and voice of all living beings.
One must know that what the creatures inside that space had done could easily be done by any other creature in the world.
In other words, Xu Yuan had already won the hearts of the people and had become someone supported and loved by everyone.
This was the real reason that made D feel fear and wariness.
Because once this kind of power from the hearts of the people gathered together, it would become unstoppable and capable of overturning everything.
Just as D was secretly losing control, something unusual appeared in Black Blade's livestream.
When Black Blade had just started the stream, many players had already poured into the livestream room.
By the time D displayed the transparent space that imprisoned those creatures before everyone, the number of viewers had already reached its peak.
The number of people online in the stream was heading toward nine digits, and it was still rising.
After all, the whole world was like a huge melon field, and people had never been able to resist watching drama.
Logically speaking, when D and Xu Yuan were confronting each other, the number of viewers in the livestream should not have fluctuated much.
But strangely, after seeing that the creatures inside the transparent space had not died, the number of viewers in the livestream suddenly began to drop sharply.
More precisely, what dropped sharply was not the number of viewers in the stream, but the number of players online in the game.
———
[Inside Zero Point Company]
Da Xing sat leisurely on a chair with his legs crossed, his eyes fixed on the phone screen where a female streamer was dancing energetically. A useless line of drool ran from his mouth, and he looked completely absorbed.
Just then, a sudden computer notification sound echoed through the room, making Da Xing jump in fright and almost fall off the chair.
The sound was sharp and urgent. Rather than a normal notification, it sounded more like a harsh alarm that made anyone hearing it feel uneasy.
Da Xing steadied himself, wiped the drool from the corner of his mouth, and showed a bit of confusion and panic on his face.
As the data monitoring staff member at Zero Point Company, his daily job was to closely watch the changes in the number of players online in the game.
And among all the positions in the company, this job could be considered one of the most relaxed and comfortable.
Since the game had launched, although there had been some small issues and twists along the way, overall the number of players online had always remained quite stable.
Even when fluctuations occasionally happened, they were slow increases. There had never been a sudden drop.
Because of this, Da Xing almost never heard this kind of notification sound during normal days.
But now, hearing this sudden alarm immediately made him fall into deep thought.
Da Xing frowned and tried hard to remember whether he had heard this sound somewhere before.
He felt that the sound seemed to have some special meaning. After thinking for a long time, when he caught sight of the bright red color in the online player data column on the computer screen, he suddenly jumped up like a carp.
"Holy shit?! What the hell is going on with the online player count?!"
"Did the server break down?!"
Seeing the unbelievable number of online players, Da Xing hurriedly called the technical department.
At this moment, the atmosphere inside the technical department was extremely tense.
Programmer E sat in front of his computer, large beads of sweat rolling down his forehead. His fingers flew across the keyboard as he tried with all his strength to intercept the waves of hacker attacks flooding in like tides.
After several intense battles, he finally managed to block several of the opponent's fierce attacks and let out a long breath.
However, before he could fully relax, an extremely confused expression appeared on his face.
He turned his head and looked around at his colleagues, shouting loudly, "What the hell is going on? Why are there suddenly so many people from different IP addresses crazily attacking our database?!"
"Did these people lose their minds? How dare they do this??"
As soon as he finished speaking, several voices immediately responded from nearby, overlapping one after another.
"Huh? You're getting attacked too?!"
"Oh my god! I've got the same situation here. These people are obviously working together! And they're coordinating perfectly. Their methods are really tricky!"
"Large scale intrusion?! Everyone hold the line! They're trying to break into the server!!"
For a moment, the entire technical department was filled with anxious and chaotic shouts.
———
[In The Corridor Of Zero Point Company]
Security guard Wang was doing his routine corridor inspection when he vaguely seemed to see a shadow flash past.
Seeing this, Wang immediately became alert and quietly followed behind.
After following for quite a while, he saw the person stop at the door of the power distribution room and pull out a thin piece of wire skillfully.
Seeing this, Wang rushed forward in one quick step, pinned the sneaky guy to the ground, and shouted, "What the hell are you sneaking around for?!"
After pinning him down, Wang couldn't help complaining.
"Brother, what era are we living in? You're still using a wire? It's all smart locks now! Face recognition, you know?!"
With one hand pressing the man down, Wang used his other hand to take out the walkie talkie from his chest.
"Captain, there's a guy sneaking around the power distribution room on the second floor. I caught him on the spot!"
After Wang reported the situation, it took quite a while before the walkie talkie responded.
From the other side came a noisy background. It sounded like many people were shouting something.
"S… shut down the server!…"
"No time… hurry!!"
"Brother… don't worry about it… charge!!…"