Chapter 54 Omens of the Apocalypse

The instance settlement was complete. Just as Wu Chang was preparing to leave, a prompt popped up before his eyes.

"Player cleared the C-rank instance in 45 minutes, setting a new record for the fastest C-rank instance clearance in the Wilderness. This record will be recorded on the leaderboard. Would the player like to make their game nickname public?"

"Refuse."

He checked the original fastest clearance record for the C-rank instance, which stood at 3 hours, 23 minutes, and 45 seconds.

He was less than three hours slower than him.

Looking back, he really did take quite a few shortcuts when clearing the instance.

Using the resentment in the mountain as waypoints, Main Quest 1: "Head to Huaiyu Village" was completed at least a day and a half faster than anyone else.

The subsequent trip to Chenjia Village saved nearly four days on the round trip.

That did not even account for him advancing the start of the New Year's Eve Festival by a full month.

Unsurprisingly, after claiming the record for the fastest C-rank instance clearance, he also secured the record for the lowest-level C-rank instance clearance.

He pushed the previous record from level 10 down to level 8.

After similarly refusing to display his identity information, he left the Crimson Courtyard and returned to the real world.

Player Nickname: DontEatBeef.
Player Level: 10 (0/2600)
(4100/1900) — (2200/2200) — (0/2600)
Titles: Perfectionist, Breaker of Deadlocks.
Health: 21
Strength: 20
Agility: 15
Endurance: 16
Energy: 14
Inspiration: 90
Willpower: 64
Free Attribute Points: 0
Decayed Silver Coins: 5000.
Skills: Mamba Iron Elbow, Firearms Proficiency (Skilful).
Technique: Fragment of Thunder Technique (E).
Items: Silver Dawn, Goddess of Fortune's Favor, Whisperer's Echo ×1, Mortal Poison, Novice Rules of the Esoteric Knights, Soul-Cleansing Spirit Banner, Four-Direction New Year Fire Lamp, Shadow-Reflecting Human Mask.
Talents: Deliverance, Calamity Spokeshadow.

Wu Chang glanced at his attribute panel and stretched lazily.

The very first thing to do after leaving an instance was to get a good day's rest.

There was still plenty of time before his e-sports hotel room expired. He tore open a bag of potato chips, unscrewed a bottle of Otaku Fat-Water, and lit up the computer screen.

The happy hour was about to begin.

In the evening, near checkout time, Wu Chang's phone rang. He glanced at the caller ID, answered the call, and asked,

"Huizi, what's up?"

"Boss, you haven't even been seen all day. What are you up to that's so busy?"

Wu Chang: "Job hunting. Unlike you, if I can't find a job, I can only go home and inherit the family business."

"What kind of industry?"

"The funeral industry." Wu Chang was not lying. He had just sent off a whole village and dug a pit to bury Chiyuan; calling it the funeral industry should not be a problem.

Fang Hui felt like he was being played and snapped irritably,

"Sales, right? The second box is half-price. Alright, stop messing around. Are you free tonight?"

"That depends on what's going on."

"Seven o'clock tonight at Golden Fish Village. Seafood, king crab, all you can eat."

"Then I am definitely free."

After hanging up and checking out of the e-sports hotel, Wu Chang strolled toward Golden Fish Village.

Golden Fish Village was a landmark restaurant near Wanghai University, characterized by a single word: expensive.

Its advantage was that it did not scam poor people.

With a per capita consumption of several hundred to a thousand yuan, if Wu Chang did not exchange his Decayed Silver Coins for cash, he would have to rely on microloans to afford a meal there.

Only by freeloading off a wealthy man like Fang Hui could he ever step through those doors.

He gazed at the luxurious sign of Golden Fish Village and involuntarily clenched his fists.

If his life had followed its normal trajectory—ordinary interviews, working a 9-to-5, acting as an everyday corporate drone—he probably never would have voluntarily come here to spend money in this lifetime.

But now, the Deliverance talent and the Abyss Game had given him this opportunity, allowing him to reach even higher places in the future.

When heaven gives, but one refuses to take, one invites blame instead.

If he could not gain a firm foothold in the Abyss Game, he might as well just die inside an instance.

Just as his expression grew solemn, his brow furrowed as if making some profound determination, an irritating voice sounded from behind him.

"Boss, is that look on your face because you're constipated or because your stomach hurts?"

Wu Chang rolled his eyes and looked at the Crouching Dragon and Phoenix Ducklings of Room 426 behind him.

A perfectly good atmosphere had been completely ruined by these fellows.

Forget it. He was not a battle-maniac type of player; playing safe and acting as a hidden schemer were more his style.

Pulling himself out of that inexplicable battle-maniac state, he sensed a trace of something wrong.

The Abyss Game seemed to be subtly influencing his thoughts, making him more submissive to his desires, more aggressive, and luring him into plunging more thoroughly into the Abyss Game.

Just a moment ago, he had even generated the thought that in order to explore the Abyss Game, he could use any means necessary, and anyone who dared to block his path would be eliminated.

Even with his 64 points of willpower, he was still being influenced by the Abyss Game. He did not dare to imagine what would happen to ordinary players who spent too long in the Abyss Game.

He shivered slightly, and the words "Little Red" had spoken in the public square suddenly echoed in his ears.

"Living in a collapsing world, humanity will sooner or later be backlashed by power. The Bosses in the instances have demonstrated this more than once."

Combined with his recent experience, this sentence felt like the horn of an apocalypse revelation.

An indescribable sense of suffocation surged up, just like when he was at the Moonlight Sanatorium and stared directly into Lyman's true form, his gaze piercing through Lyman's true form to see that Lyman's actual body was countless intertwined emotions.

At this moment, the opposite of that experience happened to him. Through the inexplicable emotions rippling in his heart, he caught a glimpse of certain scenes in a trance.

He could not understand what he was seeing, yet he was certain it was a corner of the future.

He could only see a corner; he could not spy the full picture.

Red filled the sky. He could not tell whether it was the red of resentment, the red of the Crimson Courtyard, or some even deeper red.

Everything he saw was being eroded by that smear of red.

He did not know what that smear of red represented; he only knew that the things he was seeing must absolute not be allowed to happen.

To prevent this, he had to do something.

Before he could sink any deeper into the visual hallucinations, he relied on his willpower to forcefully shake off the illusion.

Damn it, his Inspiration was a bit too high, so he ended up seeing some weird things.

He took a deep breath, turned around, and said, "Huizi, I want to eat fish."

Fang Hui waved his hand grandly, "Arranged!"

The group arrived at the reserved private room, and soon they learned the purpose of Fang Hui's dinner party today.

He had brought along the female police officer who had rescued him during the previous emergency evacuation.

Fang Hui's girlfriend was named Meng Yawen. She had neat short hair, brisk manners, and a heroic, dashing demeanor.

If an AI were prompted to generate a "female police officer beauty" design, and it didn't use Meng Yawen as a template, it meant the AI still needed training.

As a rule of thumb, anyone who could catch Fang Hui's eye was no ordinary person.

Meng Yawen worked at the Wanghai Municipal Bureau. She had served as a soldier—specifically a special forces soldier—and after retiring, she returned to Wanghai and joined the municipal bureau.

Fang Hui introduced her casually, but with a moment's thought, anyone could tell this young woman's background ran rather deep.

During dinner, Fang Hui brought up what he wanted to do after graduation.

Under the guidance of his uncle, he wanted to become an adventure streamer, specializing in filming special natural landscapes that had only recently been discovered by people.

Over the past half year, wondrous natural landscapes had begun appearing all over the world. These landscapes were bizarre and otherworldly, with an aesthetic entirely different from other beautiful sights on Blue Star, as if they came from another world.

Abyss Game players like Wu Chang knew that these landscapes were the aftermaths of instances overflowing and eroding reality, captured after the erosion crisis had been resolved.

However, the official explanation called them previously unexplored special areas.

As these special areas continued to multiply, video creators across platforms like TikTok, Kuaishou, and Bilibili were using them as material to shoot videos.

Hearing this, Wu Chang felt a bit worried. After all, those places used to be instances. Even if the surface erosion crisis was lifted, who knew what hidden hazards might be lurking there?

"Huizi, I always feel like those places are weird. What if there's radiation or toxins? Your Yawen is an official; she definitely knows more about this than I do. You should listen to her opinion."

He tried to get Meng Yawen to join him in dissuading Fang Hui, but unexpectedly, Meng Yawen didn't mind at all and instead said,

"It's fine. Let Fang Hui do what he likes to do. As it happens, I like adventuring too. When he goes, I'll accompany him, so we won't have to worry about accidents."

Hearing this, Fang Hui was deeply moved and grasped Meng Yawen's hand.

"Yawen, no matter where we go, I will be with you."

Watching the two of them being all affectionate, the private room was instantly filled with a sourness.

The sourness of jealousy.

Seeing that persuasion was futile, Wu Chang gave up.

After dinner, Fang Hui and Meng Yawen disappeared somewhere, leaving only three single guys to walk back to the dorms together.

He Wei muttered: "A romantic saint is a romantic saint. In just half a month, he manages to hook up with his ideal target."

Wu Chang patted He Wei's shoulder and comforted him:

"Look on the bright side. Fang Hui only has one Meng Yawen, but your computer and external hard drive have thousands of 'teachers' waiting for you. You've already won by a landslide."

He Wei: "Damn it!"

In the days that followed, it took Wu Chang two full days to recover from the sights he had witnessed during his Inspiration burst.

The things he saw that day—if an ordinary person were to glance at them for even a second, their sanity value would instantly drop to zero.

Only because it was him, not only did he not collapse after seeing them, but his Willpower attribute also increased by 3 points.

Regaining his spirits and reverting to a sunny, cheerful young man, Wu Chang glanced at his attribute panel, and his mood immediately soured.

A very urgent and very realistic problem lay before him.

He was out of money.