Chapter 576: I Just Want to Cut You Down to Your Face
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 576: I Just Want to Cut You Down to Your Face
"What are you all crowding around for?"
Outside the dungeon.
The Transcendent mentors who were following this event hadn't left; they had been closely monitoring the developments within the dungeon.
However, a dungeon was, after all, a Domain—and one specifically oriented toward a severance order that isolated physical space. Ordinary methods were almost useless for probing the interior.
Of course, "unable to probe" meant doing so without being detected by the players.
Every Transcendent mentor admitted that a Domain was a terrifying level of power. Some mentors hadn't even touched the threshold of a rudimentary Domain even after ascending to the Transcendent rank, as mastering a Domain had little to do with pure strength.
Still, they were confident that with the power they had accumulated as Transcendents, they could use brute force to shatter this fledgling Domain.
But a single word from the Witch Academy—that the dungeon must not be destroyed—had stayed everyone's hand. They now hovered around the mentors who had the means to observe the interior, gossiping like idle bystanders.
On the Witch Academy's side, several small groups had suddenly formed. This piqued the curiosity of many, wondering what the witches were up to now, which in turn attracted even more witches to crowd around and see.
"Hey, hey, what is this thing? You didn't post an announcement about a functional update for the Great Knowledge Seed?"
"Exactly! Why are you keeping it a secret? Let me see, what is this?"
"Oh, stop it—the feature is still in testing. We tried to mount the Academy Network's livestreaming platform onto the Great Knowledge Seed, but there’s been a glitch. We didn't expect the dungeon to be able to cut off information transmission from the Academy Network system."
"Then what are you looking at?"
"The bullet chat. Xiao Han is chatting with us in real-time."
"Chatting? This is how you chat? What do these shifting symbols even mean?"
"Just squint and look. It’s hard to explain quickly. In short, the Great Knowledge Seed hasn't fully resolved the issue of cross-channel information sharing yet, so we can only transmit images using the most primitive and simple method."
"Is this... pixel block imaging?"
"If you look closely, the images are entirely composed of the three primary colors and special symbols. Is this Xiao Han's perspective?"
Soon, the witches who were still in the dark began to catch on.
One after another, they started begging for help to update their own devices with the new feature. They wanted to see the live broadcast too!
* * *
While the mentors outside were still trying to find ways to peek inside, the students trapped within the dungeon had already begun to raise the banner of counterattack.
After a series of twists and turns, everyone had finally converged into the same dungeon space.
Having destroyed numerous dungeon spaces in succession, the positive feedback from their success had bolstered their confidence immensely.
However, at this moment, Tan Han and Ninglan Qiuyue were not feeling well at all.
"Are you feeling better?"
Tan Han cast a Flesh Regeneration Spell, restoring Ninglan Qiuyue’s withered right hand to its original state.
"Yeah... but I have a lingering sense of unease." Ninglan Qiuyue put away Ninglan's Heart. She didn't want too many people to discover the existence of this Transcendent item.
But without disclosing its capabilities, they had no justification to stop everyone from continuing their so-called "dungeon raid."
She was manipulating Luck Threads to guide their path, but several times when they followed the crowd's choices, Tan Han told her that the Luck Threads she used for guidance had snapped.
Furthermore, everyone, including Tan Han, felt a prickle of dread. This was a very clear omen.
"I feel it too. My intuition tells me that this smooth progress is far too surreal. Those players have control over the dungeon; they wouldn't just let us rampage through like this."
"In any case, it doesn't hurt to be careful."
After their conversation, the group cautiously moved through a corridor. Along the side of the path were transparent pixel blocks, and embedded within one was a figure.
Those passing by sighed, but no one stepped forward to save him, even though everyone could sense he still had signs of life.
This was the fate of ordinary people who lacked Transcendent power and had no Transcendent protector by their side.
It was unclear if the players were specifically targeting them, but most of these ordinary people were victimized by various traps, treated with the same "special attention" as the Children of Destiny.
The reason they didn't break the pixels to save them was that once the pixels were shattered, the person's body would shatter along with them!
Even those carefully excavated were unlikely to survive. It was as if their bodies weren't just embedded, but... assimilated.
Therefore, they had to find a way to completely break this place and disperse this power before these people died. Only then might they be saved.
Though they didn't know if it would actually work, it was the only path they could try.
"This dungeon area... is massive!"
After passing through the corridor, the group arrived in a gargantuan space. It was so vast that the boundaries were nearly invisible; they could even see a blue sky and drifting clouds.
However, all of it was composed of pixels. This "world" was already larger than the entire hotel and its surrounding buildings combined.
Everyone's gaze was drawn to a massive stele in the center. Pixel blocks orbited it like guards, giving the entire structure the feel of a magnificent, alien wonder.
Countless pixel blocks converged into a fluid state, flowing into the sky like ribbons, while below, they rooted into the ground like a nervous system. It looked like the most magnificent core of the dungeon, the pillar supporting its entire operation.
"The unease is getting stronger..."
Tan Han and Ninglan Qiuyue both felt the abnormality, which stood in stark contrast to the joy of those around them.
The others cheered, believing they had finally found the dungeon's ultimate core. Even though no one had told them so, they all seemed to "foresee" that destroying it would end everything.
Some were already impatient, unleashing their power as they charged toward the central monument.
"Watch out for an ambush!"
Her intense dread drove Tan Han to shout a warning, but unfortunately, her voice was drowned out by the cheers and roars of the crowd. It was insignificant. Only those closest to her took notice and paused their steps.
In that moment, Tan Han felt the insignificance of individual power within a crowd. Even if she was a Child of Destiny, even if her name was known to all, none of that gave people a reason to listen to her.
Tan Han also had to admit that after battle after battle, their energy reserves were severely depleted. It was as if everything was a meticulously woven trap.
Constantly draining everyone's strength, using victory after victory to lead these exhausted people here—it was a perfect snare, and she lacked the power to stop it.
Thinking of this, Tan Han couldn't help but take out a business card.
Throughout the dungeon exploration so far, she had encountered almost everyone of note who had attended the auction, yet she hadn't seen Xiao Han once.
This had actually been a topic of discussion among many. After all, such a powerful combatant had yet to be found; if they had her, they wouldn't be struggling this much.
But now...
Tan Han felt forced to hold the card in her hand. If they encountered true danger... she would have to use it, even if she didn't know if the current Xiao Han could respond to her summons.
While Tan Han hesitated, the wave of people blinded by the prospect of victory had already reached the massive stele.
But what greeted them was a monster's sneak attack!
The pixels guarding the perimeter seemed to sense the enemy. They restructured in mid-air, transforming into a hideous beast. Its whip-like body coiled and snapped with explosive force, its sharp tail-blade piercing a student's chest with lightning speed.
The sudden mutation didn't scare everyone off; many had been prepared for an ambush. Only the fools in the front truly thought there was no danger.
But soon, the smiles vanished from their faces. Every single floating pixel block transformed into a monster at that moment.
Even the pixel clouds drifting in the sky turned into monsters and plummeted from above. Every environmental object morphed before anyone could react, delivering lethal blows to those nearby!
The central stele erupted with a massive amount of Transcendent pixels, condensing into a colossal beast. It charged into the crowd with terrifying momentum, dealing fatal strikes to those unable to dodge.
The monster was so large that one couldn't see its full form even while looking up. A single sweep of its limb was enough to heavily injure anyone who couldn't get out of the way in time.
"Damn it... how do they still have such terrifying tricks? Clearly, before this..."
Many began to complain, but they had to admit they had been careless.
Facing such an emergency, they quickly unleashed their strongest techniques. The divine arts of the Holy Angels, the composite spell arrays of the wizards, and the elemental magic of the elves.
Even on the Witch Academy's side, some students downed their last recovery potions, their auras exploding with terrifying power as the strength of over-limit spellbooks bloomed!
For a time, the entire dungeon fell into chaos. Terrifying explosions and magical outbursts painted a grand and tragic scene. The violent collisions and roars were overwhelming.
Everyone seemed to be staking everything on this fight.
But everyone seemed to subconsciously overlook one thing: no matter how passionately they fought those monsters, it didn't change the fact that they hadn't killed a single player.
They were only killing pixels that were constantly being reshaped—creations molded by the dungeon's order. They were trading their precious Transcendent energy for these worthless things.
When the battlefield was covered in shattered pixels and the remains of monsters were scattered in every corner...
The wreckage and debris felt like trophies, the fruits and honor of their desperate struggle.
Once all the monsters had been slain at a heavy price, the stele—now devoid of its pixel guards—stood exposed. To the crowd, it looked like a lamb led to the slaughter.
Some stopped instinctively; others stepped forward with confidence. Those who felt they had contributed the most walked up under the gaze of the crowd to pluck the fruit that symbolized the end of this farce. Everything seemed as it should be.
The next second.
Under the combined force of several people, the stele shattered.
But the dungeon did not collapse as they imagined. They were not ejected from the space. What they had done was like flipping a switch.
In an instant, a blood-red, gloomy filter veiled the sky. Tones of blood and black stained everyone present.
A hair-raising, rhythmic pulse echoed through the dungeon space. The resonance hammered against everyone's hearts, allowing fear to take root in their souls.
By now, even the densest person realized that things had spiraled far beyond their expectations.
The pixel fragments at their feet turned ethereal under an invisible force, eventually converging at the site of the broken stele to form a terrifying phantom.
"That's why... I said you Transcendents are just... too green!"
the voice of a player echoed in everyone's ears. A massive phantom projected itself against the sky, like a giant standing between heaven and earth.
Below it, a gargantuan figure composed of all the pixel modules reshaped itself amidst the ruins, becoming the ultimate killing machine to harvest everything!
Everyone looked up instinctively, their gazes drawn to the player's silhouette projected on the horizon.
The mastermind behind it all had finally appeared, but he had appeared at the moment everyone least wanted him to!
"I've realized that you lot are even more 'qualified' players than we are. You don't stop to think about anything... you just raid the dungeon as if it's all a given, like you're playing house. Did you really think we went to all this trouble just to play along with you?"
the player's words were deafening, a slap to the face of everyone who had been so self-assured.
"You didn't actually think that destroying a seemingly important object would set you free, did you? If that isn't naive, I don't know what is..."
When individual consciousness cannot steer the whole, the collective behavior will manifest as utter stupidity!
Everyone present had just performed a vivid demonstration of that principle.
And now, they had to pay the price for their carelessness.
* * *
"This is your players' strongest method?"
I watched the figure condensing in the "final dungeon," my gaze narrowing slightly. This was a collective avatar that mastered a Domain.
When Domain techniques were involved, numbers truly became meaningless. It would be just like the final scene of my battle with Liliana—pure suppression. Moreover, how many among that crowd had combat power comparable to Liliana's?
However... I bet the players won't go for the kill immediately.
That said, I had to admit the psychological guidance the players had set up was quite brutal. At the final moment, they completely invalidated all the effort everyone had put in.
During the process, they used the dungeon layout to constantly drop hints, building up confidence and creating common-sense misdirections. They made sure the students wouldn't realize who the real enemy was and made everything seem logical.
It wasn't necessarily brilliant, just unexpected. And all of this was an emergency contingency plan made after that Academy Dean intervened.
The players used specific psychological steering to force everyone onto the wrong path.
After everyone had staked everything on the final push, the players stepped out to negate their efforts, mock their incompetence, trample their will, and use irrefutable facts to shut them up.
They forced the students into self-doubt; even if they didn't doubt themselves, they would be blinded by rage and emotion.
And all of this, of course, wasn't just for fun. It was to plunder their Luck.
Don't forget, Luck isn't only found on the Children of Destiny. Under the momentum of a Script Node, unassigned Luck can still be plundered. And I was the most experienced person when it came to that—the Dream Exchange Competition was proof.
In other words, the players might not have a deep understanding of Luck, and their definition of it might differ from the Main World's.
But they had a wealth of practical experience. They knew which actions could yield more Luck resources. The existence of a Child of Destiny was merely the most convenient medium, not the only way.
"Yes. How about it? If this method weren't so taxing to use, I'd really love to use it to kill you... to end the trouble once and for all!"
"Then you can send me into the battlefield too," I suggested, my gaze drifting toward one of the many monitor screens.
That screen was focused on Tan Han. The players seemed to pay extra attention to the Child of Destiny, setting up a dedicated perspective for her. What I was focused on, however, was the business card Tan Han was clutching.
I could indeed leave my current dungeon space directly, but I couldn't guarantee I could reach their dungeon space in the shortest time possible.
So, if possible, I naturally wanted to take a more convenient route—like the item in Tan Han's hand.
I wanted to deliver the most fatal blow to these players at the most critical moment.
"I suddenly feel that letting you watch them all die might be a better decision..."
"If you can't do it, just say so. What 'better decision'? It's just an excuse. Hmph!" I snorted, unceremoniously exposing their thoughts. If they could, they would absolutely want to kill me; at the very least, I was the biggest stumbling block they had encountered in this world.
So, after testing them, I realized one thing.
Once the players were authorized, their control over the Domain of the dungeon... was actually quite weak.
But that didn't matter. Things were moving in the direction I wanted.
At that moment, the corners of my mouth began to curl upward uncontrollably.
Without any unnecessary flourishes, I simply reached out and rested my right hand on the hilt of my blade...
"What? You can't bear to watch the cruel scenes to come, so you're going to slash the screen?"
"No... I want to cut down your most prideful method right in front of your faces."
As I calmly finished that sentence, a reverse summoning ritual suddenly bloomed beneath my feet.
A flash of white light erupted, and in the next instant, my figure vanished completely from the players' surveillance.