T0 Gaming Guild Saves the World

"We gave it our all, only to end up protecting people like you...?"

The nun's voice, filled with utter despair as her spirit faded, now seems... they made the wrong choice.

After re-examining everyone's loot, Watermelon Shumai found the [Thief's Key].

The words "peeping into other players' world bubbles" and "invasion" excited everyone.

It turns out there has always been an alternative solution!

Realizing that the key could not trigger the temple's magic circle, and combining it with the coordinate positioning function of the Starry Sky Jade, they could easily ambush a troublemaker who had cracked the level and steal their progress.

The plan went exceptionally smoothly. The only problem was that they all died and returned when they faced the boundary between the virtual and real worlds.

The watermelon shumai, having returned to Fengjia City, the origin of all this, was filled with resentment.

She had hoped to ride the wave of popularity and enjoy the first wave of benefits in the early stages of the game.

Without "Cyber ​​Potato," business deals, money, and a voice in the market would have already been pouring into her.

Now, it's him again! It's always him!

Anger made the watermelon shumai breathe heavily.

"We must not let him conquer the underground temple so easily; we must not let him be the first to clear it."

This is one of the few opportunities she can seize to turn her reputation around and surpass others.

As long as she succeeds in conquering the game first, and then "selflessly" shares some of her strategies and experiences, unsuspecting people will naturally defend her. Over time, history will naturally record that nothing happened.

After all, the internet has no memory, so playing dead is the simplest and most effective way to manage public opinion.

"Everyone, please work together to even out the materials needed for the energy-injecting gem."

Having just recovered from his death and weakness, Xigua Shaomai couldn't wait to start giving orders.

She concealed her anger well, her face beaming with a businesslike smile.

The people gathered here were her fans who had been refined and then refined again. So, in response to her repeated earnest and humble requests, they generously donated the last of the materials they had in their backpacks.

Some people even sacrificed their last few bottles of magic potions, while others removed one or two pieces of armor to make up the difference.

Fourteen people, their backpacks were completely empty, only a few bottles of medicine remained with the watermelon shumai.

The reason there are 14 people is that after conveying Jiang Heyi's words, Brother Shizhen left the team under the pretext of "teaming up with friends".

"Don't worry, my gaming experience tells me that once we pass through the passage, the temple will reveal only the tip of the iceberg. Just by defeating one level, we can make our investment worthwhile."

"If we can finish the walkthrough before [Cyber ​​Potato] and the others, do you think our names will appear on the front page of major gaming communities?"

The flatbread of the watermelon shumai soothed everyone's inner turmoil and resistance, while the glittering starry sky jewel released its dazzling starlight, enveloping them.

However, just before the teleportation, the seagull's notification sound suddenly rang out.

"Sin, descend!"

"Sin, descend!"

Watermelon Shaomai, who was manipulating the Starry Sky Jade, was taken aback to see the prompt on the projection panel.

"Those who steal will suffer this sin."

"I didn't use the [Thief's Key], why should I be burdened with sin!" Watermelon Shumai shouted.

The game prompts offer no further response; they simply offer a cold reminder once again, "Thieves will suffer this sin."

After a difficult process of determining the coordinates, they sold everything they owned to complete the energy injection...

The enormous sunk costs meant that not only was Xigua Shaomai, driven by a thirst for revenge and eager to turn things around, unwilling to give up, but even her fans could only grit their teeth and swallow their anger.

The negative effects of sin vary from person to person.

Some people are simply disliked by NPCs and are easily subject to scrutiny by the Judgment Knights, who impose harsh penalties.

Some people receive blessings and protection to mitigate this major negative impact on combat—the one who has been burdened with sins twice is an example of this, and his name on the projection panel has begun to turn red.

"It's okay, as long as we make some gains, everything will be alright." Watermelon Shumai quickly added, trying to boost morale, "I can share my loot with you guys first~~"

Moved by the selflessness of the watermelon shumai, the 14-person team, their fighting spirit restored, arrived at the teleportation area that resembled the Parthenon.

If Jiang Heyi and the others were here, they would be surprised that the idol, which could only be awakened with Sister Alna's lantern, had had this procedure omitted for the Watermelon Shumai team.

They merely touched the gleaming, broken statue, and like everyone else, they descended into the Great Bathing Area of ​​the Purification Layer.

The novelty and excitement of arriving in the new area lasted for a while, and without a map, they groped their way out of the public bathhouse.

The corridor, which is more than 100 meters long, is where Orange Tea and Zhong Zemo are fleeing for their lives.

There was no time to marvel at the magnificent game scenery, nor even to reach the area where the [Elemental Mist] phenomenon was triggered at the boundary between reality and illusion...

"Pfft!"

The dull thud of a sharp object piercing flesh and the player's instinctive scream as he died rang out almost simultaneously.

Immediately afterwards, everyone saw their companion, whose chest had been pierced by an invisible force, suddenly rise into the air, be kneaded into a ball by a tremendous force, and fall back down as blood splattered everywhere.

The stunning expressiveness left many people speechless.

As he turned to flee, another person had his thigh crushed and was thrown aside.

"What?! How come there are both in front and behind!"

"what!"

As if understanding these panicked words, two figures faintly appeared in the flowing magic.

The first form of the Frog-Headed Stitches, and the second form where the frog head and humanoid arms are replaced by black and white flames, are sandwiched between the Watermelon Shumai team, blocking them in the middle of the corridor.

Some people, unwilling to sit idly by and wait for their doom, took the initiative to attack the second form of the Frankenstein monster.

The chilling icicles shattered in mid-air before they even hit the ground.

And this was simply because its second form softly uttered a chant...

"Flame Flow".

A stream of flame shot out from the elemental head, burning like a bonfire, turning the caster to ashes from head to toe.

Magic can be communicated using only language.

The two forms served a small team with an average level of less than Lv5, like two harvesters, causing the people in the corridor to fall down like wheat being harvested.

"This difficulty is unreasonable!" Watermelon Shumai exclaimed in exasperation. "There are only five of them, how could they possibly pass!"

"There's definitely something wrong with this. How could we possibly defeat such a monster!"

"I want to file a complaint, they're cheating!"

"They're absolutely cheating; this is an impossible challenge!"

The frog-headed stitched monster mercilessly rolled and flattened the watermelon shumai, bringing her hysteria to the calm of death.

The world bubble, devoid of players, echoed with mechanical announcements.

"Already adapted to the thief behavior module."

"The difficulty is based on the guild's [Boundary Between Reality and Illusion], the data record '001' of the Clear Ones' Underground Temple Cleansing Layer strategy, and its conversion."

"Insert a template for learning from defeat: Increase vigilance against potions"

"Insert Defeat Lessons Template 2: Avoid Fighting in Confined Spaces"

"559021, World Bubble, recording and storage complete."

As the boundless darkness fell like the curtain of a stage play, the world bubble drifted into a deep "sleep".

Jiang Heyi and his group had no idea what hilarious things had just happened to the watermelon shumai. At this moment, they had already arrived at the second basement level, the "Guardian Level".

Furthermore, following the markers provided by Alna, they found a treasure here.

After reading, please be sure to scroll down so that the seal has accurate follow-up data. Thank you!

Chapter 28 You all smell so good

【Demon-Suppressing Stone Slab】

Unlike the anti-magic stone tablets encountered when excavating Sister Alna, the anti-magic tablets can only distort, interfere with, and weaken magic power, making them a lower-level anti-magic tablet.

A massive, dark blue anti-magic stone slab, deeply embedded in the ground, sits in the center of a collapsed temple.

Because the core magic array maintaining the Temple of the Clarity has been damaged by the Church of Eternal Night, not only are the teleportation coordinates unstable, but all the magic arrays in the defense layer are also in a state of intermittent operation, with irregular restarts and shutdowns visible everywhere along the way.

Alna's lantern played a crucial role; perhaps because it carried Alna's identity marker, all the magic arrays recognized them as Clarity Beings without exception, allowing them to pass through freely.

Recalling what he had seen along the way, Original Fries narrowed his eyes slightly: "Currently, this seems to be the only area that has been damaged."

"Is there a problem?" Orange Tea tilted her head.

“There’s a big problem,” Zhong Zemo warned. “The defense layer is the first line of defense for the Clear Ones against invasion. After the tragedy in the Dust Cleansing Layer, there’s absolutely no sign of resistance here. Isn’t that strange?”

Jiang Heyi mentioned that possibility.

"Inner ghost."

Only in this way can the great collapse of the Clarity be explained.

Their early warning system malfunctioned; the magic circles, mechanisms, and puppets that were supposed to guard them were either unable to identify the intruders or stopped responding, allowing the Church of Eternal Night to breach their defenses effortlessly.

The Demon Suppression Slab is a red-quality material and is not a bound drop.

Experience told Jiang Heyi that these special items, which could be obtained without much effort, were either a pure reward mechanism, providing positive feedback to players, or...

"Is there anything particularly dangerous waiting for us ahead?" Zhong Zemo swallowed hard.

On the defensive layer, this worry was unnecessary. The boundary between reality and illusion was carefully crossed through all areas, always worried that another frog-headed, stitched-together monster might suddenly appear, but the journey was incredibly smooth.

There was no sign of any living beings, and the puppet guards that Alna had marked on the map were nowhere to be found. They had arrived at the temple where the teleportation point was located with ease.

The encounter with the Dust Cleansing Layer made the quiet of the Guardian Layer seem particularly unusual, and they only truly felt at ease when the Teleportation Statue was awakened.

The defense layer is completely empty.

The plain fries whispered, "Is this setting the mood?"

In some extremely difficult dungeons, some game level designers will deviate from the norm and design a completely non-combat, frictionless, and relatively relaxed map space for players to explore, reducing players' vigilance.

On the third level of the underground temple, which also belonged to the guard level, they finally saw the dolls.

The bodies of puppets of different races were scattered and broken into pieces near the teleportation landing point. Hundreds of them covered the ground, making it impossible to move beyond the boundary between the virtual and real worlds. People could only "wade" across by stepping on their fleshy bodies, which were just like those of normal living beings.

From the distribution of the doll's remains in the temple where the teleportation point was located, Jiang Heyi could easily reconstruct the scene at the time of the incident.

When the Church of Eternal Night broke through the previous level, some of the Clear Ones on the third level had already reacted. The destroyed Demon Suppression Center was most likely destroyed by the Church of Eternal Night because it was suddenly activated.

Upon reaching the third level, the dolls also noticed the intruders and rushed towards the temple.

The plain fries climbed up a thick pillar and discovered something.

"The remains are very dense; these dolls all 'died' in an instant."

The puppets used by the Clarity to defend their headquarters could not possibly be inferior. The obvious signs of damage to each puppet's heart indicate that the Church of Eternal Night also removed their drive centers after destroying the puppets. This action is enough to prove the puppets' value.

Orange Tea realized what was going on: "The traitor within the Clarity is of a very high rank. He stopped the puppets from retaliating and allowed them to be destroyed."

Thus, the two most heavily guarded layers of the underground temple completely fell, causing no casualties to the Church of Eternal Night, and not even having the slightest effect of delaying its advance.

The third floor was equally quiet. The exceptionally spacious temple complex would take a long time to search, but Jiang Heyi still dared not order a split-up. He felt that giving this order would physically mean 'splitting up'.

"Click."

A faint sound in the distance made the perceptive Jiang Heyi stop abruptly and listen intently.

"It's the noise from the magic circle activating on its own, just like the one on the previous floor." The jailer heard the high-frequency, sharp, and rapid buzzing sound, and waved his hand dismissively. "Let's keep going. There's not much to pick up along the way, just a few unopened bottles of potions."

Just as everyone was about to agree with the jailer's words, another "click" froze them in place.

The sound was much closer than before.

They were now in the center of an open-air temple, which was slightly higher than the surrounding area, allowing them to easily survey every corner of the area.

"Click."

No, that sound sounds like...

Jiang Heyi and Zhong Zemo, both FPS experts, were the first to realize that possibility.

They looked up and nearly suffered cardiac arrest.