Chapter 291 Dark Zone

After the threat from hostile players was eliminated, the ghosts left in the Ancient Town no longer posed much of a danger. While the strength of the ghosts noticeably increased over time, it was evident that their speed couldn’t keep up with that of the nearly fully allied player teams completing the main quest.

The sealing fragments in the formation were primarily dropped by defeating relatively stronger monsters, and as more ghosts actively appeared trying to attack them in the later stages of the dungeon, it ironically sped up their quest completion.

Eventually, after successfully collecting the required quantity and conditions of sealing fragments, everyone sealed all the formations together, completing the main quest.

The only unfortunate one was Anton, who didn’t survive. When Ling Mo and his group happened upon him, he had been completely overtaken by the ghosts, devoid of any vitality, resembling nothing more than a walking corpse, and had already been judged dead by the system.

In the end, it was Tiger Ba Tian who went up to personally end his body’s movements, resulting in only two members of their team advancing to the next match.

However, it’s worth mentioning that during this joint operation, Tiger Ba Tian and the Fatty ended up mixing together quite well. Their temperaments matched, or to put it simply, they were kindred spirits and naturally came together.

If this dungeon hadn’t ended so soon, they probably would’ve moved on to the stage of swearing brotherhood.

Of course, having recognized this friendship, they naturally added each other as friends—according to Fatty, he planned to try and see if he could convince these men to join Chicks.

Ling Mo increasingly felt that this guy was quite the qualified pyramid seller.

Xia Xinyan, on the other hand, was still pondering the events that occurred in the previous dungeon.

The appearance of Yan Qiu’s team and the new faction of Bai Yan were both matters worth her attention, especially Yan Qiu; she had a gut feeling that perhaps Ling Mo’s reputation had been unfairly tainted due to them.

Also, why was Bai Yan targeting Yan Qiu… or rather, why were they targeting Eternal Life Palace? This was also a point worth exploring; if handled well, it could greatly aid their current situation.

However, reality didn’t allow her the time to continue pondering these matters.

Just as this match ended and all surviving players left the dungeon, not long after, the entire game hall of Realm of Divine Presence suddenly blared a sharp alarm, tinting all spaces with a layer of urgent red—despite there being no alarm lights set up around.

At this moment, in the Private Space where Xia Xinyan and Ling Mo were located, the entire sky turned blood-red, acting as a flashing emergency light.

It left all players in the hall or community in a state of shock.

Since the game had launched, they had never encountered such a situation.

Even with game updates, aside from the initial launch period and a few server downtimes afterward, it had mostly been smooth sailing with hot updates; the game system never proactively provided players with any update notices, leaving players to seek it out themselves.

In the beginning, many hardcore players complained about this, but over time everyone got used to it, routinely checking for new announcements every couple of days.

However, in recent days, there had been no update notices from the game.

So, no one knew what the sudden alarm signified.

Except for Xia Xinyan.

And it was precisely because she knew that she felt even more shocked—

This was the alarm signaling the official opening of the Dark Zone.

Previously mentioned, the game divides into three main parts: Safe Zone, Battle Zone, and Dark Zone, with the final Dark Zone being the most dangerous and fundamental part of the game, possibly even the essence of the game itself.

In her past life, the opening of the Dark Zone marked the official onset of the Cataclysm era—but that was originally supposed to be at the end of this year.

Now, the time hadn’t even reached mid-year; it had come a full six months earlier!

The peaceful era hadn’t even been disrupted, and humanity hadn’t started adapting to the impending new era of abilities, yet the Cataclysm was about to arrive early?!

This could bring unpredictable and significant impacts on the entire world!

Because the Cataclysm not only involved a massive change in the game but, most importantly, it would affect reality! The monsters that only existed in the Dark Zone would truly invade the real world and cause destruction!

In reality, no one could respawn back in the game hall after dying!

The same applied in the Dark Zone! If players died in the Dark Zone, it meant complete and utter death!

—Sure enough, after the alarm reverberated through the entire game world, all players not in a dungeon received a prompt from the game system simultaneously:

[The game is about to undergo a significant update. The server will close in ten minutes. All players outside of dungeons, please exit the game in time to avoid unnecessary losses.]

[The Dark Zone will be opened after this update, and there will be major changes to game content and gameplay. Please read the update details carefully after the update is complete.]

Noticing Xia Xinyan’s astonishment, Ling Mo instinctively asked after reading the system prompt, “What’s wrong? Is there something wrong with this update?”

“Big problem.” Xia Xinyan took a deep breath, tilted her head to glance at him, “The timeline is messed up.”

After saying that, she directly logged out.

Ling Mo paused for a moment and then quickly exited the game.

When he crawled out of the game pod, he saw that Xia Xinyan had already left the game pod and was angrily questioning someone in the living room, “Tianji?! What’s going on?! Why is the Cataclysm happening this early?!”

She didn’t even have the patience to communicate with Tianji quietly.

[… Host, please don’t be agitated; this system is analyzing the causes of this sudden event.]

“How can I not be agitated?!” Xia Xinyan seemed ready to explode, but after glancing at the bewildered Ling Mo, she managed to hold it back. “Do you know what kind of consequences this major change will bring? The whole world isn’t ready yet! Do you think they can directly face the Cataclysm in their current state?! They might…”

“Oh?” A sudden voice interrupted Xia Xinyan’s questioning. Monica had somehow leaned against the door, watching the two inside, smiling, “Things got out of hand, huh?”

Xia Xinyan paused, exchanging glances for a moment before retorting, “You know about this matter, don’t you?”

“Sort of… I’ve noticed a bit.” Monica raised her eyebrows, “This world… has been reset, right? And it’s the work of your terminal?”

Saying this, she shrugged, “You see, there’s a basic principle in the study of temporal space— theoretically, as long as time and space are inconsistent, the world cannot have identical concepts.”

“Resetting time and space follows the same principle; from a theoretical perspective, differences in time can be roughly translated into differences in space. Even if the reset world is still this world, it should be regarded as a parallel world.”