The lone Hilichurl, upon seeing so many of its kind suddenly appeared, thought rescue had come. It let out a desperate, guttural cry.
But that cry only hastened its death.
Before it could even finish, there was a sharp crack!
Liang Chuan twisted its head clean off.
Ordinary Hilichurls were fragile like that.
He had struck fast—
but that shout had already alerted more than a dozen Abyss Hilichurls deeper in the forest.
They came trudging forward one by one, their dark aura thick with killing intent.
BlazingFlame's scalp went numb at the sight. He quickly turned to Liang Chuan and shouted:
"Chuan-ge! We need to run! We can't stay here!"
"Run? There's nowhere to run…"
Liang Chuan shook his head.
"The Abyss Gate in the Masters of the Night-Wind's region has opened. Abyssal creatures are everywhere now.
The ones here are just low-tier Hilichurls tainted by void energy—those we can still handle.
But if we flee and run into an Abyss Mitachurl, Abyss Mage, or—heaven forbid—a Rifthound, we're as good as dead."
"Then what do we do now?"
"Hold. We hold the line!"
Liang Chuan's voice turned grim.
"The people of the Natlan Tribe won't just let Abyssal creatures roam unchecked.
And Chasca just saw us earlier—
She knows there are outsiders in this forest. She'll come."
"So… we just need to buy time?"
BlazingFlame glanced at IReallyEatBeef, who had just staggered to his feet.
"Feels like the plot's kicking in.
Honestly, we could just log off right now, yeah?
Who cares about the cutscene—
if we die here, we don't even have bioenergy for a respawn!"
"I'm all for logging out...
Those Hilichurl punches hurt like hell!"
IReallyEatBeef rubbed his stomach, grimacing.
Liang Chuan's brow twitched as he overheard them.
Trying to log out and bail now? Not on my watch.
"From here on out, the defense of this outpost depends on you two!"
He looked at the players sternly.
"Huh?! Me?!"
BlazingFlame froze like a deer in headlights, as if the boss had just ordered him to slay a saint.
Sure enough, right after Liang Chuan spoke, a new quest notification appeared before their eyes:
BOSS has issued you a quest — [Defend the Terminal]
Objective: Protect the [Bioenergy Terminal] in the Masters of the Night-Wind region until all Abyssal creatures retreat.
Reward: EXP ×100, Silver ×1 (1 Gold = 100 Silver, 1 Silver = 100 Copper).
(Note: This is a [Player Faction Quest]. Cannot be declined!)
Failure to participate or passive completion will result in account suspension!
"F***!!!"
BlazingFlame couldn't hold back the curse.
An unskippable Player Faction Quest?! And they couldn't even slack off—had to actively participate?!
"Uh… so do we log off or do the quest?"
IReallyEatBeef turned to him uncertainly.
"Did you not read the penalty?!"
BlazingFlame sighed.
"If we do the quest, we might survive.
If we don't, we're banned on the spot!
Not much of a choice, huh?
Still… the reward's pretty solid.
Finish this and we'll both level up—and a silver coin, too!
Even with Chuan-ge's insane prices, you should buy something."
Seeing that the two players were finally "persuaded," Liang Chuan wasted no time giving orders.
"You two—haul the corpses of the Hilichurls and Abyss Hilichurls to the [Bioenergy Terminal] for conversion.
I'll draw the others away."
"Got it, Chuan-ge!"
The two players each hefted a Hilichurl corpse and jogged toward the terminal,
while Liang Chuan nocked an arrow and loosed it at the nearest Abyss Hilichurl, pulling its attention.
Fortunately, these corrupted creatures were slow and had lost their minds under the void's influence.
For Liang Chuan, kiting them was manageable.
During the fight, he even landed three perfect shots in a row, killing three Abyss Hilichurls outright—
his level rose to 3, and he gained another free attribute point.
Before long, BlazingFlame and IReallyEatBeef finished hauling the bodies.
A pleasant chime echoed in Liang Chuan's head.
Hilichurl successfully converted.
Bioenergy +0.99
Abyss Hilichurl successfully converted.
Bioenergy +9.9
"Hmm? Why those exact numbers?"
He glanced at the notification, then nodded in realization.
"Right—1% of the bioenergy gets diverted to the players' resurrection reserve."
He couldn't help but smile.
"Didn't expect Abyss Hilichurls to yield ten times the bioenergy of normal ones!
That means every one I convert is enough to summon another player."
Checking his stats, he saw his reserves now totaled 20.89 Bioenergy,
including the 10 points he'd kept aside for player revivals.
"Good thing my own revival cost doesn't scale with level…
Otherwise I'd be too scared to summon anyone."
With that thought, Liang Chuan spent 10 bioenergy to summon a new player.
This time he didn't select a specific candidate;
The system simply pulled a random human consciousness from some other universe.
Moments later, a new figure stepped out of the [Bioenergy Terminal].
The player's ID read OneSlashToTheThroat.
He was barely a meter tall, gaunt to the point of being skeletal,
skin pitch-black from head to toe—
in the dark, only the whites of his eyes and his teeth were visible.
BlazingFlame's jaw dropped.
"Bro… what is that character design?!"
"I'm playing an assassin. You know what I mean?"
"Oh, I get it. Pure min-maxer, huh?
Everything for the stats!"
"Exactly."
While still kiting the Abyss Hilichurls, Liang Chuan opened OneSlashToTheThroat's status panel and skill list.
Name: OneSlashToTheThroat
Race: Human
Level: 1 (0%)
Class: Rogue
Constitution: 5
Strength: 5
Agility: 20
Spirit: 5
Remaining Attribute Points: 0
Talent Skill: [Gale Step]