Chapter 3: Dad 20
"They're here, they're here, it's the mermen!"
"Oh oh, brothers, these mermen even have scales on them, fish heads and human bodies, they look just like the real thing!"
"The game is so realistic, I feel my blood boiling!"
"A group fight? Awesome! I haven't been in a group fight since I graduated from junior high!"
Looking at the mermen rushing out of the black fog, a group of players were filled with excitement.
At this time, the black fog thinned, and the mermen had completely rushed out. Behind them, they could see a beach slightly larger than Ren Zha's divine domain, and some crabs and starfish, the environment was clearly better.
"One, two, three, four, five..." The player with the ID "Replaying Chop D" roughly counted and shouted, "There are over eighty mermen in total, all holding bone weapons, they're so short, they don't look very powerful."
The player with the ID "Deserved It": "Let's go! There seems to be a reward after killing them, I think this game will be popular, if we do well in the beta test, there will definitely be benefits!"
The player with the ID "Sister Hug Me": "Holy cow, I have to admire the details of this game, it's too realistic! Look at the expressions on these fish, they even frown! They don't have eyebrows, but they frown! It's so incredibly detailed!"
After a few shouts, the mermen team had already rushed in front of the players, howling.
"Go, brothers! Kill the fish!"
Someone shouted, and a group of already excited players let out a crazy roar and rushed forward to fight with the mermen.
The player with the ID "Deserved It" used a cleaver to chop off half of a merman's head, and at the same time felt a slight pain in his chest, having been pierced by a bone spear in the merman's hand. 1
"It doesn't hurt much..." He chuckled, about to say a few more words, when his eyes closed and he died.
A blue soul-like apparition immediately floated out of the corpse and drifted towards the dome.
ID Shanjia Chan dodged an attack from a merman, hitting the merman on the head with a stick, knocking it unconscious. However, he was immediately attacked by another merman who chopped off his arm. 2
The players' attacks were very chaotic, and the mermen were equally disorganized, lacking even basic intelligence; they were simply fighting based on animal instincts.
Ren Zha nervously watched the first battle of his player-followers from the dome of the divine realm.
After all, this was also a first-time experience for him, a new god.
He quickly realized that the battle below was completely chaotic.
No, it wasn't even as organized as a street brawl; it was more like a village fight, a chaotic free-for-all.
These temporarily recruited player-followers had no strategy or formation whatsoever, just a chaotic slaughter.
Several of them, clearly overweight, were wrestling with mermen half their height, locked in a fierce struggle.
The average combat power of each person was roughly equivalent to that of a fish. 14
However, the mermen's fighting was equally disorganized.
At first, they had a little bit of strategy, at least knowing how to attack in groups. But after getting mixed up in the melee, the mermen also fought purely on instinct.
This was quite normal.
After all, he, the "God of Darkness and Earth," and the "God of the Endless Ocean" who came to attack, were both trash gods without even a single star of divine power.
Utterly impoverished.
They were even at the bottom of the barrel among trash gods. The battle between the two sides was completely a clash of amateurs. 4
Considering the circumstances, they were doing pretty well.
Ren Zha quickly noticed that several players were significantly stronger than the others.
The player with the ID "Playing with Chopping D" seemed very professional, not only organizing the players around him into a small group, but also using tactical attacks.
The player with the ID "Boss XX" was like a madman, wielding a cleaver in each hand, and moving very quickly, clearly having done a lot of fitness training. While nimbly cutting down the murlocs, he muttered things like, "Making you work overtime... making you work 996... giving you 'blessings'..." 9
The player with the ID "Cute and Adorable," a muscular man in a loli outfit, was a tank-type player. He used his samurai sword like a watermelon knife, wildly hacking at the murlocs despite being covered in wounds, shouting:
"I hate it, I hate it, I hate eating fish the most!" 25
The performance of several other player-believers was also very impressive, forming a solid core.
Most importantly, the cleavers used by the player-believers were made of steel, giving them a significant technological advantage against the murlocs' bone spears and forks. Often, a few powerful swings were enough to directly cut through the murlocs' bone weapons.
At first, the murlocs, relying on their numerical advantage, swarmed and killed more than a dozen human players. However, after the human players stabilized, they gradually formed a cleaver-wielding team centered around a few key players, and began to surround and hack at the murlocs.
The key was that they weren't afraid to die!
"Tsk tsk, come on brothers, put in some more effort! I think these murlocs are scared now, they seem to be retreating!" In mid-air, the soul of the player with the ID "Deserved It" shouted while picking his nose.
"This aerial view after death is pretty good. I think I can see Old Hei's heroic spirit, it's really handsome. The game designers are really something," another player's soul, also floating upwards, exclaimed. "To be honest, the game's realism is too high, it's a bit bloody. I'm never eating chopped chili fish head again..." one player's soul muttered, suddenly retching in mid-air and spitting out a puddle of unknown blue ectoplasm. 20
Although they were killed by the murlocs in battle, this soul state allowed them to give advice to their teammates below, which was quite interesting. 2
Finally, with the cooperation of the three melee teams composed of human player believers, only about twenty of the eighty murlocs remained, and they were completely unable to withstand the fear of death, beginning to scatter and flee throughout the divine realm.
The original divine battle turned into a one-sided massacre.
"Pfft..." The player with the ID "Playing Chopped D Again" chopped off half of the last murloc's head with a single blow, panting heavily.
"Phew... Phew... I'm exhausted. How can playing a game be so tiring? The realism of this game is comparable to those fitness games."
The player with the ID "Boss XX" next to him slumped to the ground, also panting heavily and shouting:
"That was exhilarating! Hahaha, I haven't felt this good in a long time! I can work overtime until one o'clock tomorrow!" 11
After killing the last murloc, the remaining twenty or so believer players were all exhausted and sat on the ground, or simply lay down in the grass.
During the divine battle, they were all pumped up, but now that it was over, they finally felt how tired they were.
"Hey, where's Old Hei? Is our quest completed? Why haven't we seen any sign of Old Hei? Shouldn't there be some kind of reward points or equipment? The equipment on these murlocs is too crappy, aren't there any other dropped items?"
One player looked up at the high dome and said.
The other players, including those souls floating in mid-air, all looked bewildered. Meanwhile, above the divine realm's dome, invisible to these player-believers, Ren Zha felt a continuous surge of divine power, and the area of his divine realm was rapidly expanding. Even the divine radiance on his body became brighter!
Ren Zha's face lit up with joy.
He had won the divine war, and now the laws of the divine realm were judging the outcome. He would receive most of the divine power and the divine realm of the challenger, the "God of the Endless Ocean"!
With a surge of divine power, Ren Zha instantly disappeared from his original location and reappeared above the damp sandy beach of that divine realm.
Within the dome space was a palace inlaid with coral and seashells, emitting a blue, water-elemental divine light.
This was the temple of the God of the Endless Ocean.
However, this temple had lost a large amount of divine power protection and had developed numerous cracks, beginning to crumble and collapse.
On the pearl and coral throne of the temple, the merman god, wearing a crown, looked terrified, desperately trying to use his divine power to detach the rainbow bridge connecting the two divine realms, but it was completely useless.
"How could this be! You actually have so many followers, and human followers at that! This... this is impossible! You're clearly poorer than me, you don't even have a temple!" Seeing Ren Zha appear before him, the crowned merman god looked shocked, "You... this is a trap!"
He had specifically targeted the divine realm with the dimmest starlight to initiate a divine war, but he never expected that this god, whose starlight had almost completely extinguished, would have so many powerful followers, and highly intelligent human followers at that!
This guy's divine realm was clearly as simple as a puddle of sewage, without even a temple at the top of the divine realm, which is why Griss had attacked without hesitation! 1
Seeing his murloc tribe, which he had painstakingly built up for so long, being slaughtered and scattered, and himself utterly defeated, the Murloc God's heart bled.
But now was not the time to resist. He quickly dragged his body, stripped of most of its divine power, and rolled down from the divine throne, kneeling before Ren Zha:
"Great God of Darkness and Earth, this is the mistake of the humble Griss. Please quell your divine wrath and forgive the humble Griss. The humble Griss is willing to be your most humble servant and become your vanguard." 3
Ren Zha shrugged, waved his hand, and divine power condensed into a long blade, which he used to strike Griss down. 1
"We're all just weaklings, so let's not flatter each other. A weakling servant is useless to me anyway; I'd rather absorb more divine power." 3
This blow directly shattered Griss's body, along with his divine essence, turning him into a burst of divine light that merged into Ren Zha's body.
At the same time, Ren Zha's divine power surged, and Griss's divine domain and temple were completely absorbed by his own divine domain.
The black mist and rainbow bridge faded, and Griss's divine domain completely disappeared. Ren Zha's divine domain began to expand rapidly, finally stopping after reaching a radius of over two hundred meters, several times larger than before.
In the dome above the divine domain, a temple appeared in the previously empty space.
That was Ren Zha's temple, with twelve stone pillars dozens of meters high, carved with mysterious patterns, and black spires, like the horns of a demon.
Ren Zha sat on the divine throne, feeling the surging divine power, more than twice as strong as before, and showed a satisfied expression. 2
At least he wasn't completely destitute anymore; he had his own temple.
Not as shabby as before. A clamor of voices came from outside the temple; the souls of the fallen player-believers had ascended.
These people died in the divine war, and according to the laws of the divine realm, their souls would ascend to the heavenly sanctuary where the temple was located after death, becoming heroic spirits.
Unless they were resurrected.
"Look, look, this is the heavenly sanctuary of the divine realm!"
"Tsk tsk, this temple looks so majestic! We've ascended to heaven after death, haven't we? There's even a reincarnation system! I love the game designers so much, this game is really well-designed."
"Haha, I even have a halo above my head after death, it's so interesting! I feel so light right now."
"Let's go, let's go, let's go inside the temple and take a look. This temple seems a bit simple, there aren't even any angels or attendants. It's not very interesting to be a heroic spirit like this. I wonder if they'll improve it in future versions."
"Oh oh oh, look, it's Old Hei! Old Hei is here!"
"Tsk tsk, Old Hei looks quite impressive sitting there."
A group of heroic spirits of the fallen player-believers poured into the temple, looking at Ren Zha sitting on the divine throne, exclaiming in amazement.
At this time, Ren Zha fully displayed his divine form, towering dozens of meters high, with the human heroic spirits at his feet like tiny ants, marveling at him.
These people are so noisy...
Ren Zha, who had just experienced the new facilities of the sanctuary, sighed and stood up.
Divine power surged, and he immediately returned to the divine realm below, also bringing back the more than twenty heroic spirits of the fallen. The spirits of these fallen warriors quickly returned to their broken bodies, which were then enveloped in a faint golden divine light, rapidly restoring them and bringing them back to life, their souls once again bound to their bodies.
The player-believers who were resting on the spot immediately gathered around, and a group of them began chatting excitedly.
"We're alive again! Hahaha, brothers, there's even a temple on this divine realm, the game developers are pretty good!"
"Old Hei sitting in the temple looks quite godlike. This NPC, apart from its low intelligence, is really well-made."
"Welcome back. Why hasn't the game settled the quest rewards yet? Did we fight those monsters for nothing?" Shanjiachan looked around and said.
"Don't worry, judging from the completeness of the game, the company definitely isn't short of money. They'll probably give out some rare equipment or something, otherwise, what's the point of us participating in the beta test?"
Shanjiachan pouted: "Hard to say, maybe they're just being stingy."
Ren Zha looked at the group of expectant players, pondered for a moment, and with a surge of divine power, entered Blue Star through the spatial channel of the divine realm, and made some minor interventions in the human world. A line of large golden characters appeared in the sky above the divine realm:
"Brave followers of the God of Darkness and Earth, valiant warriors, you have defeated the evil God of the Endless Ocean and his vile followers, and have received the praise of the God of Darkness and Earth! Each of you is awarded 10,000 yuan!" 13
Shan Jiachan clicked his tongue: "So it's just in-game currency after all. Well, I hope it'll be useful when the open beta starts."
Just then, he heard the notification sound from his online bank: "Dear customer, 10,000 yuan has been credited to your account. Remitter: Real Game Company." 1
Shan Jiachan's eyes widened, and after a moment of愣, he knelt down towards Ren Zha in mid-air, shouting:
"Dad!" 46