Chapter 519: Weakened Warriors

Before him lay a vast and boundlessly dark, gloomy forest.

Zombies crawled out from the dense woods, as if infinite in number, surging toward Luo Piaoling.

The difficulty of this virtual reality dungeon offered four selectable levels, among which Warrior was the true difficulty; within the lore, these adventurers possessed remarkable strength themselves, making the Warrior level imaginable—a difficulty that ordinary warrior players had to form a party to pass.

As for King level, it was the ultimate difficulty meant for these adventurers to challenge their limits, never intended for players to solo.

The higher the difficulty, the greater the various rewards obtained, so it was not merely about challenging oneself; for higher gains, many people would also opt for the greater difficulties.

Three players stared blankly at the screen, dazed for a short moment.

Then they snapped back to reality.

"Time is up."

"Let's go, let's go!"

They logged off and left.

Now, the original four-man party was left with Luo Piaoling entirely alone.

"..." His whole face darkened instantly; though he had not yet figured out why his teammates had completely vanished, still...

Facing so many zombies all by himself!?

One must know that the zombies in the Dark Thunderland Ruins were no ordinary zombies, but also included those capable of dark magic; the light in the gloomy forest was extremely poor, and beneath the feet of the massive horde of zombies closing in, several magic orbs bearing a thick, sinister aura crept silently along the ground.

If he had his original cultivation level, it would be fine, but now, as a Ghost Swordsman around level ten, his perception of his surroundings in this dark zone had dropped almost to the absolute limit; Luo Piaoling, who was hacking away at the zombies, was caught off guard and struck on the spot!

After going through this cycle several times, although he valiantly slaughtered his way all the way to the BOSS, he was already severely wounded to his absolute limit.

Soon, he fell before the BOSS and the colossal horde of zombies.

He had inquired before that in a game like this, one could generally revive at a specific resurrection point after death.

But Luo Piaoling discovered...

The game interface before him actually displayed a... Resurrection Coin option?!

Although Luo Piaoling had not purchased any Resurrection Coins, he found that...

He could spend 1 spirit crystal to purchase a Resurrection Coin and revive.

!!??

He still had over 700 spirit crystals on his member card; somewhat bewildered, he gave it a try, and indeed, one spirit crystal was deducted, and he revived on the spot with full health!

"To think it could actually be like this!!??" Staring dumbfounded at his fully restored self, he burst into a fit of laughter.

"Since it is so, what monster can possibly block me?!"

Then, with a beautiful flash of movement, he dodged the BOSS's attack, and slashed out fiercely with the greatsword in his hand.

Combining the skills within the game with his own swordsmanship, he actually cleared out all the lesser monsters around the lord all along the way.

But at this moment, he noticed...

He had slashed the lord once earlier, but now... where were the wounds on its body?!

The lord of the Dark Thunderland Ruins was a zombie king with extreme speed, surrounded by freezing air; Luo Piaoling carefully dodged its attacks, finding a spare moment to slash it again.

Then he calmly continued to dodge the attacks, evading several times, and once more found an opportunity to strike.

Then he discovered...

The wound he had slashed earlier was gone again.

Luo Piaoling was completely dumbfounded.

One must know that in reality, after taking several of his sword strikes, and with a greatsword attack at that, it would have long been decapitated!

But now, this zombie king before him had merely suffered a scratched hide, and after a short period... it was actually slowly regenerating!

More importantly, the freezing air surrounding the zombie king made his life condition worse and worse.

After fighting for half an hour...

Only a miserable shriek was heard.

Luo Piaoling had gone completely frantic: Forget it, forget it, I'll go out, party up again, and come back...

Soon, he revived at the entrance of the Grand Flores.

But he felt...

He could not muster a single shred of strength.

"You have entered a weakened state."

"Ah—!" He had completely broken down.

He felt like spitting blood.

What kind of ghost was this!?

First, his teammates vanished, and then, after finally managing to fight his way to the lord single-handedly relying on his personal skills, he actually couldn't slash as fast as the opponent regenerated?!

Even if that could be overlooked, after spending nearly an hour, he gained no experience, and instead, his body was so weakened that he couldn't even step out the door?!

One didn't even need to think to know that entering the dungeon in this state, he couldn't even defeat the lesser monsters.

The game experience was utterly terrible!

In this state, almost nothing could be done; to recover, he had to wait at least ten-odd minutes, or spend a large amount of gold coins to go to the Moonlight Tavern to recover with magical items.

While he was in a weakened state, he noticed that there were quite a few other adventurers around him who had actually turned into a weakened state as well?

The noisy voices were laced with a large amount of complaints.

"How did you get weakened too?"

"Don't mention it, the King difficulty is just too high; the three of us went in and simply couldn't beat it, how did you get weakened?"

"Encountered trash teammates, halfway through the fight the people just straight up vanished."

"..."

This was one with a good temper.

There were also those with short tempers: "IDs Young Master Chen, Invincible and Most Lonely, these people are all absolute trash! Vanishing halfway through the fight, everyone must never party with them! They caused me and another teammate to both become completely weakened!"

He shouted wildly at the entrance, as if terrified that others wouldn't know.

"Is this a place for humans to go?!" The cultivators and warriors who had died back and entered a weakened state complained in succession.

"Too difficult! I went in with two teammates, and simply couldn't kill them!"

Although those present were all cultivators and warriors, the game's difficulty itself was tailor-made for these cultivators and warriors, plus at this time most people had not changed classes, nor did they have equipment; although the lord's regeneration speed at high difficulty was not fast, under conditions where their levels and attributes were too poor, the stronger ones had no problem passing Warrior, but at higher difficulties, their too-low attack power could no longer be compensated for by other means.

As for ordinary warriors and cultivators, they had just encountered this game, and without four people, they didn't even need to think about challenging high difficulties.

After countless casualties, many people in a weakened state simply couldn't bear to spend a large amount of gold coins to speed up recovery, and immediately began to complain.

Take Tang Yu for instance, his spear technique was mediocre to begin with, yet he chose a Gunner, and not only that, he insisted on choosing high difficulty to hone his skills, and at this moment he had been tormented to the point of doubting life.

Xun Yuan, who played a Mage, was even more so; although the magic system was somewhat similar to cultivators, there were also many differences, and before he had fully figured out his own spells, he thought of challenging high difficulties, resulting in him now standing weakened at the entrance of the Grand Flores, with a face full of despair from being tormented.

In the blink of an eye, he saw a white-haired old man who was also in a completely weakened state, who was none other than Gu Tingyun.

"......"

At the entrance of the Grand Flores forest, a vast throng of weakened warriors had congregated, either because they lacked a realistic assessment of their own abilities and had challenged a high-difficulty level, or because their teammates had suddenly disconnected.

As for Tang Yu, a favored child of heaven, how could his failure possibly be due to his own lack of skill?

With nothing to do during the weakness cooldown period, a frenzy of furious protests immediately erupted within the Yuan-Yang City shop.

"Can anyone even clear a place like this?!"

"It is simply too difficult!"

"Boss! What is going on with this game?!"

"Kings Difficulty is absolutely impossible to clear, alright?!"

"This game is too much of a rip-off."

"I do not want to play anymore!"

Before the protests could even subside, a voice suddenly rang out from the entrance of Grand Flores, shouting: "Carrying through Kings Difficulty Dark Thunderland, fifteen thousand gold coins per run, or forty thousand gold coins for a solo carry! Dead-weight corpse-lying supported the whole way!"

Everyone was stunned in their tracks.

"What?!"

"Carrying through Kings Difficulty Dark Thunderland?!"

"Are they insane?!" quite a few people exclaimed in disbelief; how could such a person even exist?!

Xun Yuan and the others stopped protesting at once.

Tang Yu shouted: "Look in the game, quick! Someone is offering a carry for Kings Difficulty Dark Thunderland!"

"What?!" Wang Xie, Xun Yuan, and the rest of the young noblemen all wheeled around to look.

"Carrying Dark Thunderland?!" Theia had only just emerged from the Master Difficulty Dark Thunderland. Her teammates had been too incompetent, forcing her to burn through several Resurrection Coins to revive them and herself before they finally, barely managed to clear it.

One could easily imagine how difficult it would be for a single person to solo Kings Difficulty.

"How could that be possible?! They must be a fraud!" After all, someone as powerful as herself had only managed to scrape through the Master level by the skin of her teeth!

Luo Piaoling also quickly located the person in question—a minor Ghost Knight named something like "Just Loves Playing White Hand." He wore no purchased avatars, clad only in the default starting clothes of a novice Ghost Knight, possessing a name that made him feel like a complete background extra.

"Could he really be a scammer?!"

"Wait, isn't that the boss's account?!" someone suddenly recognized it.

A twitch passed over many faces: "What kind of ridiculous name is that for the boss?"

"The boss?!" Theia's expression grew increasingly contemptuous. During the martial arts competition back then, this person had not even dared to step onto the stage, content only to stand on the sidelines and offer armchair commentary.

In truth, by this time, many Western Domain players who had finished watching Final Fantasy had also begun following Luo Piaoling and the others into playing this game.

"Hmph! Even Lord Sith (Luo Piaoling) came back flat on his back. How could anyone possibly defeat that monster!"

"If it were our King of the Western Domain, there might be a shred of a possibility. That kid was timid and shrank back during the competition; he is going to challenge that monster?"

"No need to worry. Look at all these weakened adventurers surrounding Lord Sith. He will soon join their ranks."

"Hahaha!"

The weakened warriors engaged in a flurry of heated discussions, pointing fingers and passing judgment.

.