I'm Clocking Out, Village Chief
Among the twelve most infamous eok-kka in this game, there was a classic combo that always ranked near the top — a troll-exclusive event that had just locked in and fired off for real.
I was the one who'd built multiplayer mode in the first place. I'd bought the server myself. And some absolute bastard had gone and slammed in a conflicting mod on the grounds that he "needed restriction play," dragging in some other mode and crashing the whole thing together.
Sadly, even as the server owner, there was no way to check whether someone had that mod installed or to ban specific people over it. And if I wanted to rescue the newbies who'd gotten snared by the slimeball who'd cooked up that vicious mod in the first place, I had no choice but to install the damn thing myself, holding my nose the whole way.
Of course, that was only true when the mod first dropped. Later on it became the foundation for an arena mode where people compared their most deranged self-builds against each other.
So in practice, this was the mode that formed the bedrock of PvP.
Because if you used an Abyss-related event on another player's corpse-object, you could resurrect them as a monster.
Whether it was tailored to the Abyss Knight concept or not, the player's corpse was sealed head to toe in full plate armor black as obsidian. Violet energy poured from the slit in the helmet's visor as the thing drew a massive greatsword from thin air and slammed it across its back with a heavy thud.
On top of that, the humanity with the Gahi job class was singing a Latin hymn from inside my Mental World, laying down boss-fight BGM — so yeah, it made for a genuinely cool scene.
But that had to be a concept build, right?
Please tell me that wasn't a genuine hardcore PvP veteran build.
"Hah!"
I deployed every skill at once. Chopsticks and the waterwheel spun up; I felt the transformation skill activate and Heavenly Slaughter Art pour buffs into me. The standoff lasted only a heartbeat.
Classic combo.
The Ancient prefix alone slapped on a full 20% level correction, and the Legendary prefix inflated the grade by an entire tier — and those two didn't stack additively. They squared. The disaster veterans called eok-kka was on the move.
"But I don't fight on body stats alone either!"
The enormous greatsword wreathed in ominous violet energy collided with my hammer, which was sheathed in red slaughter-qi from Spoon. The raid boss monster staggered into a stun, and I went flying, tumbling end over end across the ground.
The raid boss monster started moving again, stomping down hard. Violet energy rolled out from the impact — some kind of debuff, from the way I suddenly felt weaker. I fired back immediately with my Erosion skill, shaking off the violet energy and trying to slap a debuff on the raid boss in return, only for the power of the Abyss to block it cold.
"God, this boss-flag bullshit is the worst!"
I sprayed Chopsticks wildly, but the moment they touched the black armor they shattered and vanished like snapped twigs.
I'd felt damage on the bounce-back and wondered for a second, but after confirming it wasn't a reflect build, I immediately swapped the gear set loaded in my quickslot mode for something halfway decent.
It bothered me a little that I hadn't even put together a PvP gear set — I'd never imagined I'd be PvPing another player — but come on. Was there any chance this guy had been running hardcore PvP gear when he died in the Abyss?
I ignored the noisy peanut gallery, hurled the hammer — durability gone, already crumbling apart — straight at the monster, and pulled a fresh weapon from my inventory.
Then a thought hit me out of nowhere.
That knight-concept player's corpse just now.
Hadn't it drawn a sword from thin air, same as me?
Neutral NPCs and monsters in xianxia mode used spatial-expansion pouches called storage bags as their dedicated inventories.
The question formed, and the humanities who'd read the thought immediately offered two options. I picked one of them.
I swung the weapon upward again, and the instant we clashed I let go of it entirely, activated Tunnel Dig, and launched a reverse charge that completely ignored inertia. The corpse hiccuped for a fraction of a second like it had lagged — then erupted with terrifying violet energy and came after me.
"Holy shit, that wasn't a pattern — that was an actual parry attempt?!"
It wasn't like neutral NPCs never ran psychological warfare, but this thing was closer to a puppet or marionette the Abyss was operating through a player's corpse-object...!
"Hey! You've got consciousness in there, don't you?! Open the chat window! Hey!"
I should have caught it the moment a raid boss monster — which should have had 100% stun resistance after the grade-up — flinched on that first collision!
Ignoring my shouting, it used a movement skill, closed the gap in a blink, and swept the greatsword sideways in a horizontal cut. The instant I tried to dodge—
A brilliant yellow flash bloomed. The blue horn jutting from above my head detonated four successive bursts of blue ghostfire, intercepting the flash and nullifying it.
In a single exchange, three hit-immunity charges and one damage-immunity charge from a Mythic-grade item were gone.
"This goddamn PvP-exclusive skill that forces hit registration until a crit lands! What the hell are you, you bastard?!"
Abyss or not, this was way past the line — anyone could see this thing was playing psychological games specifically to strip defensive gear and artifacts, exactly the way a player would!
Those were clearly movements designed to counter a player. In what universe was this a monster?!
The knight's answer to my stream of curses was the flat of a massive greatsword, swung without a shred of mercy.
Despite the humanity's frantic coaching, instinct still made me try to evade with Tunnel Dig — and in that instant a violet gauntlet filled my entire field of vision beyond a flash of pure white.
The blue horn protruding from my Mythic-grade helmet completely blocked the blow. Then the burning blue ghostfire lost its light and went out.
Shoving aside the shock of losing every last hit-immunity and damage-immunity charge in that split second, I spun the waterwheel full-force at the knight right in front of me and wrenched open my Mental World.
The Mental World deployed through Erosion was a buff-slash-area skill that worked by world-assimilation, so it barely cost anything — but the Sea of Slaughter pouring from the door of the Mental World I'd forced open with the waterwheel itself was so toxic that even the floor of the Abyss started dying under the slaughter-qi.
The Abyss screams.
The Abyss fixes its gaze upon you!
The Abyss remembers you.
Even as misfortune events stacked in rapid succession and Abyss-exclusive debuffs piled on, weakening me by the second, I held on to the waterwheel and endured.
Despite already being a corpse, the knight treated the Sea of Slaughter as anything but a free pass — burning every skill it had trying to break free. And it wasn't just skills. It was weaving in the skill cancels and basic-attack cancels unique to actual players, chaining combinations like a real user.
But simply put, there was just too much slaughter-qi.
For the knight as it stood now, there was no way out of the Sea of Slaughter.
A cultivator might have abandoned the body and bailed with just their Nascent Soul — but this thing clearly wasn't a cultivator!
The only energy I'd been sensing was Abyss energy, and that wasn't because it was a corpse. It was because it had never been a cultivator to begin with.
Had it picked a class and leveled up thinking this was just that trash game, never realizing it was in xianxia mode?
"■■■■■■■——————!!!"
With a monstrous roar, explosive dark-violet energy burst from the crouched knight's body, barely shoving back the Sea of Slaughter — and just as the sea was about to swallow it whole again—
At the heart of the Sea of Slaughter, dark-violet energy began surging upward like a waterfall.
"Where there is meeting there must be parting, and what is gained will someday be lost — for the world is forever changing!!!"
The instant I poured out the restriction, the Nascent Soul bursting from my forehead spun the waterwheel hard.
"Circulate!"
Law sank into the Sea of Slaughter. It whirled into a vortex, biting down as if to kill every last scrap of Abyss energy, severing the Abyss waterfall and swallowing it whole.
I'd cut the enhancement event off midstream, but the knight still staggered upright in the middle of the Sea of Slaughter, barely managing to push the slaughter-qi back a fraction. Cracks spiderwebbed across its full-body armor all at once.
Through the fractured plates, dark-violet tentacles flicked open pure white eyes with sickening dark-violet pupils — and with that, it finally shoved the Sea of Slaughter all the way back.
Yu Hee's Nascent Soul drew out a tower like a stick and leveled it as if aiming a gun.
"Beep!"
Aurora carved through the Abyss and Yu Hee in a single stroke.
"You're supposed to draw it before you fire?!"
Apparently I'd fired it while it was still lodged in my heart — my entire left upper body blew apart, leaving a massive hole with a golden scanner floating serenely in the middle of it, making its presence known.
Of course, the knight took a direct hit from the Aurora that had erupted out through my own body, unable to even parry. The Abyss shielding it was stripped away by Aurora in the same instant, and the Sea of Slaughter crushed down on top of it.
In the end the knight couldn't hold. It dropped to one knee.
Clutching the greatsword — snapped in half when the Sea of Slaughter had whirled under the law — in both hands like a cane, it forced up its crumbling helmet and locked eyes with me.
"■■■■."
As the full plate shattered apart, the knight collapsed.
Not the flood of experience pouring in. Not the congratulatory chime from the item filter or the black-silver Ancient-grade items bursting out as drops. Not even the tremors running through the entire Abyss map like a warning omen.
Yu Hee stood frozen, gaze nailed to the chat window that had been doing its absolute best to stay invisible in the corner of her vision.