eurekapd Chapter 42: The New Stage's Boss, the False God
Chapter 42: The New Stage's Boss, the False God
The newly opened stone door resembled the mouth of a silent behemoth.
The pressure emanating from behind the door was completely different from the sacred yet hypocritical atmosphere surrounding Adam and Eve.
This force is more primal, more profound, and carries a viscous texture that makes one feel physically uncomfortable.
The air was no longer just a gas; inhaling it felt like being filled with semi-solidified gel. Each breath was more labored than the last, and each heartbeat felt like beating a drum covered with a damp cloth.
"This place...something's not right." Zhao Leiguang raised his double shields again, holding them in front of him. Just standing there, he felt an invisible weight pressing down on his shoulders, making even raising his arms a beat slower.
Xiao Qianyu remained silent, gripping the Red Lotus Luoshen Spear tightly in her other hand. The flames on the spear tip danced somewhat slowly in the viscous air.
The group passed through the stone gate and stepped into a corridor that extended downwards.
At the end of the corridor was an excessively spacious circular stone hall.
In the center of the stone hall, with his back to everyone, sat a hunched figure.
It was an old man, wearing the same coarse cloth robe as the villagers before him. His sparse, gray hair was plastered to his scalp. He was curled up in a ball, his head hanging down, and his face was not visible.
He remained motionless, as if he had been sitting there for hundreds of years, becoming a weathered statue.
Just as the entire first squad was on high alert, unsure of how to deal with the NPC in front of them, they heard a series of hurried footsteps coming from the corridor behind them.
They were the villagers who had just woken up.
Their faces still bore the bewilderment and gratitude of surviving a disaster. When they saw the first team, they seemed to have found their backbone and rushed over eagerly.
The middle-aged man at the head of the group, with tears still on his face, rushed to the front of the line, passed Xiao Qianyu, and then knelt straight down on the floor of the circular stone hall.
They didn't kneel before Lu Yan and his "saviors."
Instead, he knelt before the motionless old man sitting in the center of the stone hall.
"God..."
The man spoke, his voice filled with a frenzied devotion.
He cried out as he slammed his forehead against the hard stone slab, making dull "thump" sounds.
More villagers poured in.
They rushed past the first squad's defenses, ignoring Zhao Leiguang's outstretched arms, and knelt down one after another.
The entire stone hall was filled with kneeling people.
They prayed incoherently, offering their all to the old man who had turned his back on all living beings in the most humble way.
Su Yunqing opened her mouth, wanting to say something, but the bizarre scene before her silenced her.
She could sense that the life force in these villagers was slipping away at an incredible speed.
The next second, something unexpected happened.
The middle-aged man who kowtowed the most forcefully suddenly froze. His skin rapidly lost its color, turning as pale and transparent as paper.
A piercing scream erupted from his body.
A twisted, gray soul, exuding a venomous aura, was forcibly extracted from his crown chakra, flying like a piece of iron drawn by a magnet towards the old man in the center of the stone hall.
The soul disappeared into the old man's back.
The middle-aged man's body, like a sack that had been emptied of air, collapsed limply to the ground, turning into dust.
One, two, three...
The dominoes are falling.
The hundreds of villagers kneeling on the ground underwent the same physical changes one after another.
Screams rose and fell, merging into a chilling symphony. Countless gray souls struggled to break free from the body, swirling and screaming, forming a gray tornado that poured into the old man's body.
The whole process took only a dozen seconds.
Inside the stone hall, apart from the seven members of the first squad, there was no one else alive.
The ground was covered with ashes in the shape of human figures.
Wen Yue's fingers, holding the crossbow, were taut, and the muscles on her usually expressionless face tensed up.
Zhao Leiguang stared blankly at the empty stone hall and then at the ashes on the ground.
"Wait...we just saved them...what the hell is going on? Did we work for nothing?" He felt his brain was starting to malfunction. "Aren't they NPCs? Why are they committing suicide?"
No one could answer him.
Just then, a cold system notification popped up in front of everyone.
Unlike previous task prompts, this time the notification border is dark red.
[Secret Realm Announcement: The Ultimate Law of Eden]
[Because the explorers rescued over 60% of the native inhabitants in the first area (Pastoral Town), a hidden sacrifice mechanic was triggered.]
[Mechanism Determination: All "goodwill" received during rescue will automatically be converted into "offerings" to the lord of the second district.]
"Your mercy will become His strength."
The last line of text, carrying a mocking tone, lingered on the panel for a full five seconds before slowly disappearing.
"Holy shit!" Zhao Leiguang finally understood. He slammed his fist on his shield with a loud clang. "Are you kidding us?!"
So all their hard work in killing Adam and Eve and rescuing the villagers wasn't a good deed at all.
They're just helping the next boss collect experience packs to level up!
The designer of this S-level secret realm definitely has psychological problems.
Xiao Qianyu's face also darkened. This feeling of being made a fool of was even more frustrating than directly confronting a powerful enemy she couldn't defeat.
"So that's how it is."
Lu Yan's voice was calm, revealing no emotional fluctuation. He simply toyed with the Eternal Scepter in his hand, watching the old man's back.
"The mechanism of this dungeon is to use the 'rewards' from the previous level to feed the boss of the next level. The more people we save, the stronger the next boss will be."
He paused, then added.
"It's quite environmentally friendly, making use of waste."
Zhao Leiguang was taken aback by his dry humor, a lump forming in his throat, neither able to breathe nor able to exhale.
"You're still joking at a time like this!"
Just as he was shouting, the old man in the center of the stone hall moved.
He absorbed the soul power of hundreds of villagers, and his withered body expanded at a visible speed, like an inflated balloon.
The cracking and popping sounds of bones grinding and breaking were incessant.
He slowly stood up.
His originally hunched back straightened up section by section, and his height increased from less than 1.5 meters to 3 meters, 5 meters... 10 meters!
His coarse cloth robe was torn, revealing his dry, cracked skin underneath, like the bark of a withered tree.
He turned around.
A face beyond description appeared before everyone.
The face had no features, only a huge, empty black vortex. Deep within the vortex, hundreds of points of light, formed from the souls that had just been devoured, flickered, filled with resentment and despair.
Xiao Qianyu immediately brought up the detection panel.
When she saw the data displayed on the panel, even a battle-hardened commander like her pupils contracted slightly.
[False God: God]
[Rank: Lv.60]
[Type: Regional Lord/Elite BOSS]
[Status: Saturated / ???]
Level 60.
It is five levels higher than the Gemini False God.
Moreover, this is not an ordinary BOSS; it has the word "elite" as its suffix.
Zhao Leiguang also saw that glaring number. He gasped, his voice trembling.
"Level 60...? Are you kidding me!"
This has exceeded the cognitive limits of all players in the current version.
At level 50, you're challenging a level 60 elite lord?
This isn't a dungeon run, this is suicide.
The behemoth known as "God" raised his arm, which was thicker than a bucket, and his hollow, swirling face was aimed at the first squad.
A pressure ten times heavier than before suddenly descended.
Zhao Leiguang felt as if he had been hit head-on by a mountain. His legs went weak and he knelt down on one knee. The Earth Pulse Shield slammed into the ground, sending up a ring of gravel.
Even Su Yunqing and Lin Chuxue, who were standing in the back row, felt a tightness in their chests and had difficulty breathing.
Only Lu Yan, the moment the oppressive aura descended, slammed the Eternal Scepter to the ground.
A golden halo radiated outwards from him, forming an independent domain that kept the overwhelming pressure at bay.
The burden on everyone in the team instantly lightened.
Zhao Leiguang stood up, leaning on his shield, panting heavily. He looked at the towering monster, his playful smile gone for the first time.
"Brother Yan... how do we fight this thing?"
"If you can't beat them, run away." Lu Yan's answer was crisp and decisive.
"Run?" Zhao Leiguang was stunned for a moment. "Where can we run? There's no road behind us."
"Who said there's no road?"
Lu Yan raised his hand and pointed behind the giant BOSS.
There, on the wall of the stone hall, a new stone door had appeared at some unknown time.
On the stone gate, a bright red countdown number is ticking.
【60: 00】