Chapter 98: The Game Starts, A Small Soldier in Wugui City

Chapter 98: Game Begins, a Small Soldier in No Return City

The great city fell.

The entire metropolis lay in ruins, with broken walls and collapsed buildings everywhere.

Within the city, only a scattered thousand fiendish creatures roamed.

The bleached bones on the ground had no one to build graves for them.

No one knew whose beloved sons they once were.

A month later, a human army marched again to this great city and, after a bloody battle, recaptured it.

The leading commander bore a bloody scar across his face, looking especially ghastly; he drank wine with his officers.

Five days later, the fiendish army attacked again.

This great city fell once more.

The great fire raged for two months, and another human army arrived here.

Alas, their fate was still total annihilation.

Later, another human army came, and again they all perished here.

Then, Qi Yuan landed on the city wall. This city had not seen a human army for over ten years.

He looked at the bones filling the city.

"Every soldier who sets foot in this city and guards it begins a countdown to their lifespan; no one can live beyond ten days."

"And now, my task... is to guard this solitary city?"

Qi Yuan stood alone in the desolate city, looking up at the towering walls, pitted and scarred with countless blade marks.

A sense of vastness and desolation washed over him.

On the wall were the words "No Return City."

Qi Yuan glanced at himself: "Level forty-five?"

Now, entering the game, he was indeed level 45.

Unlike his first entry, when he was only level 1.

So Qi Yuan guessed that level 45 was akin to late Foundation Establishment.

Whatever the strength of his soul in the Canglan Realm, that was his level when he entered the game.

"Level 45, not bad—I can kill small monsters."

A smile appeared in Qi Yuan's eyes.

Killing monsters would level him up in the game.

And this cultivation would also feed back into reality at a certain ratio.

In reality, his cultivation would also rise quickly.

He liked this feeling.

"Pity, I don't have a suitable weapon," Qi Yuan said, looking at himself.

It seemed he had entered alone.

But in an instant, he froze.

"Xiao Jia?"

He suddenly noticed the mark of Xiao Jia on his chest.

Had Xiao Jia followed him into the game?

"Xiao Jia!" Qi Yuan called out.

Instantly, Xiao Jia's figure appeared beside Qi Yuan.

She wore a blood-red wedding gown, looking utterly enchanting.

Timid Xiao Jia looked bewildered at her surroundings.

But when she saw Qi Yuan, she seemed reassured and tightly gripped his arm.

Qi Yuan smiled: "In ancient times, scholars read by night with a beauty adding fragrance to the ink.

Now I, Qi Yuan, guard this solitary city, accompanied by a bride in her wedding dress."

Thinking this, Qi Yuan found the game interesting as well.

Just then, the fiends roaming the city seemed to notice Qi Yuan and charged at him with mad roars.

For these fiends, tearing apart all humans was their instinct.

Hundreds of fiends, hideous and grotesque like all manner of terrifying monsters, lunged at Qi Yuan with their massive bodies.

"Xiao Jia!" Qi Yuan shouted.

We are brothers in arms!

Instantly, blood-red fireflies merged into Qi Yuan's body, and a blood-red armor covered him completely, sealing him tight.

On his shoulders, long, sharp spikes gleamed with an eerie red light.

His height shot up to ten meters, making him look like a terrifying blood-colored monster.

Qi Yuan waved his hand, and a broken sword fell into his grasp.

The broken sword instantly grew larger and longer, covered in blood red.

Now the broken sword resembled a crimson heavy ruler.

He bared his teeth, revealing sharp fangs: "Little monsters, hunting time begins again!"

He crashed into the fiends like a heavy mecha, as if charging into a dinosaur park.

How could those flesh-and-blood fiends stand against him?

"Kill!"

With one sword stroke, dozens of fiends fell.

+40.

+20.

+10.

+35.

Countless experience points poured in. Qi Yuan slaughtered like a demon god, never stopping.

Wherever he passed, it became a hellscape. Every fiend that met him had only one path: death.

In ten days, Qi Yuan alone swept through the entire solitary city.

Now, Qi Yuan leaned against a half-collapsed wall, gasping for breath.

"In No Return City, there are finally no more fiends."

All the demonic fiends were slaughtered clean by him alone.

And his level had also risen to forty-nine.

Ten days to gain four levels—this pace was swift indeed.

Just then, a chime entered Qi Yuan’s ears.

[Successfully cleansed demonic fiends, obtained Key Fragment x1.]

[Begin guarding the City of No Return; the longer the guard, the richer the rewards.]

[If a demonic fiend enters the City of No Return, the guarding state will fail.] Hearing these prompts, Qi Yuan’s expression relaxed.

“Who says this world isn’t a game?”

“It is a game!”

“The game I play is a game!”

Qi Yuan, holding his broken sword and embracing Xiao Jia, sat with her on the city wall.

Gazing into the distance, yellow sand filled the sky; from time to time, great winds swept by, dust and sand billowing, and occasionally a rusted, battered remnant sword was revealed.

Qi Yuan wrapped his arm around Xiao Jia, watching the desert scenery with her.

Sometimes when a gale raged, he shielded her from the front.

Sometimes when the night was enchanting, he dug a pit and slept with Xiao Jia beneath the city wall.

Whenever a demonic fiend set foot there, he would surely sense it and slay it with one sword stroke.

“I wonder when the next wave of monsters will attack the city.”

That day, Qi Yuan and Xiao Jia sat on the wall, both expectant and not.

What if some clever little creature slipped into the city?

His guarding state would then fail.

But if no demonic fiends came, he couldn’t grind monsters and gain experience.

Just then, in the distant desert, two figures in tattered armor appeared, catching Qi Yuan’s attention.

In the distance.

“Cough, cough…” Zhang Sheng, seeing the towering city wall, his eyes moistened, “Finally here.”

Beside Zhang Sheng, the one-armed Chen Jiao, his face deathly pale, handed water to Zhang Sheng.

“Brother Sheng, drink up the water; we brothers will take the City of No Return!”

That waterskin held all the water they had left.

As the army supporting the City of No Return, the Song Banner Camp had one thousand seven hundred and twenty-three soldiers.

The commanding general was named Li Huan, once a renowned general of Great Xia.

The City of No Return had not returned to Great Xia’s territory for over ten years.

It was one of the one hundred and eight thousand cities that had fallen.

Half a year ago, the Great Xia ruler, exhausting the nation’s strength, conscripted a troop of gray-haired veterans to march to the City of No Return, aiming to retake it.

But on the way, they encountered a horde of demonic fiends.

The two sides clashed; only Zhang Sheng and Chen Jiao escaped death, waking from a pile of corpses.

The two, grievously wounded, still pressed on to the City of No Return, determined to plant Great Xia’s military banner on the city wall.

As long as the banner was raised, it meant that the City of No Return still belonged to Great Xia for one more day.

The City of No Return would not be considered completely lost.

If demonic fiends occupied a city for over a hundred years, it would forever cease to belong to humanity.

Unless it was retaken and guarded for a full century.

How difficult was that?

Soldiers coming to the City of No Return had no retreat, not even supplies.

In Great Xia, there was also a saying:

When one set foot on the road to the City of No Return, their lifespan was reduced to just one month.

“Pity, the banner cannot stay forever on the city wall of No Return,” Chen Jiao said, his face full of disappointment.

He had originally been a pig butcher in town, his family butchers for generations.

His cousin and father had both died at the City of No Return.

He was the only one left in his family.

Zhang Sheng, on the other hand, was a town constable, his father the chief constable.

To Chen Jiao, Zhang Sheng was born with a silver spoon.

Zhang Sheng had always loved being a wanderer, riding in fine clothes and spirited horses.

This time, ignoring his father’s advice, Zhang Sheng secretly enlisted and came here.

Zhang Sheng looked at the City of No Return, his face full of excitement: “The City of No Return hasn’t returned to Great Xia for over ten years. As long as we plant the military banner on the wall, the soldiers and people of Great Xia will surely be stirred to fervor!”

Zhang Sheng’s grandfather had also died in the City of No Return.

He was the youngest in the family, with an elder brother to care for their father, so he came.

Both were severely wounded; as they spoke, blood seeped from the corners of their mouths.

“To be buried in the same ground as our Great Xia ancestors, whose spirit still endures—I have no regrets in this life,” Chen Jiao said. Though a butcher by trade, he always liked to use flowery language.

“The only pity is that we cannot erect graves for our forebears,” Zhang Sheng said, drawing his broadsword, his gaze turning resolute.

Entering the City of No Return, they would be besieged by demonic fiends.

Death was certain; even without fiends, their wounds would not let them live past ten days.

Just then, suddenly, Zhang Sheng’s eyes widened: “How can there be people on the city wall?”

Chen Jiao was also stunned, an expression of disbelief on his face.

The City of No Return had been lost for over ten years—how could there be people?

Could it be an illusion?

Aren’t the City of No Return filled with demonic fiends?

The two could not understand; they exchanged glances.

“Let’s go take a look.”

Zhang Sheng and Chen Jiao quickened their pace, gazing toward the City of No Return.

The closer they got, the more astonished they became.

Because inside the City of No Return, it was utterly silent, with no roar of demonic fiends to be heard.

This was different from the news they had received.

By all logic, should not the city of No Return now be filled with nothing but demonic fiends?

Yet upon the city wall, the man in black robes, with what seemed to be a broken sword cradled in his arms, grew ever clearer in his features.

He sat upright on the wall, his form gaunt, yet unmistakably human.

“You… who are you?” Chen Jiao mustered his courage to ask.

The man on the wall stirred. He looked at the two, his voice calm: “Warden of No Return City!”

Chen Jiao and Zhang Sheng heard this, their hearts shaken, an ineffable emotion spreading through them.

Could it be that all these years, No Return City had not fully fallen?

That a subject of Great Xia, alone with a broken sword, sat upon the wall, guarding this place?

“I am Zhang Sheng, a soldier of the Song Banner of Great Xia!”

“I am Chen Jiao, a soldier of the Song Banner of Great Xia!”

Qi Yuan heard this, his gaze falling upon the two: “The NPCs who were supposed to be stationed here?”

PS: Inspiration drawn from history—the Tang Dynasty’s “a lone city ten thousand li away, filled with white-haired soldiers.”

(The chapter ends)