Under the gloomy sky, in the church district of Divian’s north city, countless congregation members were bustling about inside and out. The Wolf Blood Society armed themselves and formed ranks, while the lingering citizens and believers were being urged to leave the church.
Many detective analysis focused YouTubers noticed this and started creating explanation videos for the convenience of their viewers.
Some YouTubers gained over 100,000 followers overnight by analyzing Chen Yi’s videos.
Even with an abundance of high-level items, it could be explained as the foundation of a large organization.
Take Manjusaka, for instance, which has existed for a long time. Their organization has items ranging from low to high level, so many that Xu Miaomiao couldn’t even remember them all. Ding Xiao also had many items because the previous leader had died in a high-level instance, leaving her a lot of savings.
But Legendary Items are different.
Legendary Items aren’t something that can be resolved just by having a long history. Currently, the Legendary Items circulating in the Tower World are mostly well-known, and their whereabouts are generally known.
Take Manjusaka, for example. Including the bone staff in Xu Miaomiao’s hand that is just one step away from becoming a Legendary Item, they only have three Legendary Items, and Xu Miaomiao’s bone staff is stuck at this step, unable to progress.
Blackbird seems to have only two Legendary Items on the surface. One is in Lin Qing’s hand, and the other is the Moon Wheel from the 19th-floor instance that caused a fight among all organizations, which is now in Yan Wei’s hand.
So Legendary Items have always been considered a fixed number, roughly around thirty.
Whenever a new one appears, it is usually either painstakingly upgraded from a high-level item or appears in a high-level instance. Regardless of which, it takes time and attracts a lot of attention, and the entire Tower World would know almost immediately.
Xu Miaomiao watched as Yan Wei tossed out five or six more Legendary Items.
Now, their surroundings were filled with dozens of high-level items and Legendary Items. Ghosts and monsters crowded around but were blocked by these items, unable to get close for the time being. High-level items shattered one by one, and those Legendary Items also began to crumble.
Legendary Items, which would cause a bloody fight if just one appeared outside and are only around thirty in total, now seemed to be piled up like worthless objects before her eyes. She didn’t even know the names of these Legendary Items before watching them turn into powder.
Xu Miaomiao rubbed her eyes.
Dozens.
Her eyes were fine.
But she felt her mind was messed up.
“…”
Xu Miaomiao’s first reaction was that she had entered a Dream Barrier.
Ghosts and monsters come in many forms. Some are vicious and bloody, capable of decapitating a person with a single strike; some are terrifying, able to scare people to death just by appearing nearby; and some enter people’s dreams silently, trapping their souls in illusions forever…
Xu Miaomiao glanced at the densely packed Legendary Items around her and observed her surroundings again.
Based on her experience and deduction, it wasn’t a Dream Barrier.
Xu Miaomiao: “…?”
If it weren’t for the critical moment, her basic player instincts would keep her on edge, always aware that she was in a life-and-death situation. But the impact of dozens of Legendary Items still left Xu Miaomiao dazed.
Have I gone crazy, or has this instance gone crazy? Xu Miaomiao thought.
In her daze, she suddenly remembered a legend about Legendary Items.
Or rather, it wasn’t a vague legend, but a past event known by the core players of the Tower World. However, everyone related to it had died, and the center of that legend had disappeared, so no one thought about it anymore.
—There are indeed more than thirty Legendary Items.
If we were to count, there are even over a hundred Legendary Items. The reason why the extra ones aren’t recorded is that they were all created by one person.
It was the work of the missing leader of Blackbird.
“V”.
The leader of Blackbird, who is shrouded in mystery among high-level players, not only had unparalleled deduction abilities, was the Best Player in every instance, and rushed to the top floor without any records left behind, but also had the ability to create Legendary Items.
The Moon Wheel in Yan Wei’s hand, before it shattered and flowed into a low-level instance, was the first Legendary Item created by the leader of Blackbird.
Since then, creating Legendary Items became as easy as eating and drinking for him. Every time he cleared an instance, he would casually create a Legendary Item out of necessity using his high perception and high-level items. In the end, these Legendary Items didn’t even have names and were only used by V a few times, and everyone got used to it.
So much so that later, when the countless Legendary Items created by V disappeared along with his disappearance, these items were never recorded in the Tower World.
Yan Wei was the only one among many competing organizations who obtained a Moon Wheel Fragment.
Now, Yan Wei casually tossed out several Legendary Items.
Yan Wei…
Xu Miaomiao stared at these Legendary Items she had never seen before, and suddenly a bizarre yet completely reasonable speculation arose in her mind.
Yan Wei paid no attention to Xu Miaomiao.
He looked at the ghosts and monsters in front of him and heard Yan Mingguang’s slightly urgent voice from outside: “Yan Wei? Take advantage of your undying state to leave some items for Xu Miaomiao, come out first, I’ll go in.”
Yan Wei was indifferent.
If Yan Mingguang came in, wouldn’t it be the same?
He could rely on his undying skill, stand up, and walk out directly. These ghosts and monsters couldn’t kill him, but doing so…
Yan Wei remembered the words spoken by the malice before it left.
—”You always want everything… but you always lose everything.”
His hands holding the Moon Wheel trembled slightly, and the faint white halo wavered, sweeping over those bloody faces, like phantoms from hell. The stench of decay assaulted his nostrils, and the sound of fingertips rubbing together pressed on his nerves.
Yan Wei clenched his fists.
He understood what the malice meant by those words.
During his first Ascension, all the players on the top floor died there. He wanted to save everyone, but in the end, he lost everything except himself.
Now is the same.
The malice knew that this little trick couldn’t kill him. He could rely on his undying state and just walk out nonchalantly, leaving these ghosts and monsters to tear Xu Miaomiao apart.
But doing so, just as the malice said, just like the result of his last Ascension—he would lose everything around him.
He vaguely knew that Yan Mingguang might have a solution. This man had more secrets than he knew, and even last night’s entanglement with ghosts and monsters left him unscathed. There might be another way to get Xu Miaomiao out.
But Yan Wei didn’t want to.
He felt a sense of unwillingness and disbelief.
He couldn’t believe that he would fail for the first time under such despicable and disgusting things, nor was he willing to lose to the other party in mentality again this time.
He could keep Xu Miaomiao safe.
Yan Wei put the Moon Wheel into the Black Ring and checked the remaining time of his undying state.
He said: “Xu Miaomiao, these items will keep you safe for a while. I’m going to open a corner later, if anything happens, remember to move the items to block it.”
“Open a corner!?” Xu Miaomiao’s attention was pulled back, “Are you crazy?”
Yan Wei wasn’t crazy.
He almost held his breath, focused, and placed his hand on the items in front of him.
There was another way. In the undying state, immunity to certain death wouldn’t make these ghosts and monsters disperse, they had to succeed in killing a player. Or rather, make these dirty things think the player was dead.
These things were targeting not only Xu Miaomiao but also him, so who died in this death trigger wasn’t important… he could do it too.
Before twelve o’clock, he wouldn’t die if attacked.
After twelve o’clock, he would be penetrated by ghosts and monsters if attacked.
But if it was exactly at twelve o’clock, when the undying state hadn’t ended and the normal state had just begun.
At that moment, if the ghosts and monsters attacked him, he would be judged as dead, but because the undying state hadn’t ended, he wouldn’t die.
But only at that moment, not a second earlier, not a second later.
Yan Wei stared at the remaining time of his undying state, counting down silently in his heart.
Yan Mingguang stood at the door.
His hand was already on the door handle, ready to push the door open and rush in at any moment.
Lin Qing stood behind Yan Mingguang, also counting down to twelve o’clock.
They stood outside the door, and in the shaking carriage, they could faintly hear the sound of nails scratching inside, intertwining like the whispers of countless evil spirits.
“There’s more than one ghost inside.” Lin Qing said.
Yan Mingguang’s expression didn’t change: “It’s full of dirty things inside.”
“Yan Wei—”
Yan Mingguang rarely interrupted others: “If midnight comes and Yan Wei hasn’t come out, regardless of the rules, I’ll rush in.”
Lin Qing fell silent.
There was no clock in front of them, but it was as if a clock was hanging in their hearts, ticking second by second, counting down the approaching midnight.
Time sped up at this moment, but every second was magnified. Outside the window, the sound of rain was dense, rolling with the sound of the train moving along the tracks.
Suddenly—
Midnight arrived.
Yan Mingguang opened the door without hesitation.
—Inside was a scene of calm.
The sound of nails scratching iron disappeared with the sound of the door opening, and the room was filled with a nauseating stench of decay. The floor, walls, bunks, and table were all covered with a mixture of sticky brain matter and blood.
The light from the flashlight spilled out from inside, and Yan Mingguang didn’t even blink.
Xu Miaomiao helped Yan Wei walk out.
As the two walked out of the compartment, Yan Mingguang immediately took Yan Wei from Xu Miaomiao and pulled him into his arms.
“…I’m fine.” Yan Wei’s face was pale, his lips devoid of color, “I used a gap in my skill to make the ghosts attack me at exactly twelve o’clock. Although I didn’t die and there are no visible injuries, the effect of death still took place, and now I…”
He paused, about to speak again, but Yan Mingguang reached out and placed his finger on Yan Wei’s lips, stopping his words. Yan Wei, who had been chilled by the sudden arrival of death, now felt warmth from the man’s fingertips. Leaning against him, Yan Wei suddenly felt a bit of warmth.
“Don’t talk if you’re too exhausted.”
“…” Yan Wei obediently didn’t open his mouth, but with a gentle expression, he vividly displayed an “Oh.”
Xu Miaomiao, who had just escaped death, stood inside the compartment and looked out, seeing Yan Mingguang holding Yan Wei as if no one else was around. She was about to tease the two, but before she could speak, she remembered the Legendary Items that had been tossed out from Yan Wei’s hand.
Yan Wei.
Like her, one of the most prominent novice players of their generation, who had rushed up to the 49th floor and met her, had been the Best Player in every instance before, and without hesitation joined Blackbird when everyone was competing. Then, he fell silent for half a year, without a word, and directly entered the 89th floor.
Holding the Moon Wheel, casually scattering Legendary Items as if they were nothing.
Codename Yan.
The mysterious leader and founder of Blackbird.
His speed of ascending the tower broke the record in the Tower World at that time, was the Best Player in every Ascension, and from the first floor to the top floor, he created the myth of players actively creating Legendary Items. With his own strength, he kept Blackbird among the top organizations. Before Yan Wei appeared, this mysterious leader had completely disappeared, becoming a true myth that no one could see.
The first Legendary Item he created was the Moon Wheel, and later he created so many Legendary Items that the players in the Tower World gave up recording them.
Codename V.
Xu Miaomiao was silent, walking out of the compartment in a daze.
