The fisherman druid is in another world

Chapter 738

'boom! ’

Amidst the deafening explosion, the protective force field, which also served as a concealment device, was shattered, turning into countless translucent fragments that shot in all directions. As these fragments flew, they transformed into clusters of burning light that dissipated.

"It's the Reaper!"

Accompanied by screams, a piercing alarm sounded through the chaotic camp staircase.

Most of the people who were having dinner were suddenly thrown into chaos. Some ran around frantically, some tried to escape, some were shocked, and some looked ashen-faced.

Then the torture began: the soul was extracted, compressed, and then burned like a candle.

Since almost everyone in the area was affected by this soul-extracting and soul-burning attack at roughly the same time, the resulting special soul fluctuations caused even exceptionally strong individuals with exceptionally strong souls to be affected and feel fear.

Once this fear takes hold, it is immediately amplified, overwhelming the still relatively clear consciousness and beginning to affect the physical body.

The adrenaline surged, but instead of being used for fighting or escaping, it was all wasted. However, the large amount of lactic acid produced by the stimulation did have a real effect on the muscles, resulting in the effect of 'being so scared that your legs are weak and you have no strength'.

"Sure enough, killing and destruction are still the most satisfying!" Black Rob thought gleefully as the mastermind behind yet another secret camp wiped out.

This is the eleventh.

Ever since discovering the vulnerability in the secret magic array of the Chaotic Stairway, Victor the Reaper has worked tirelessly, traveling to various locations, even at the cost of high losses in all aspects, to eliminate several similar camps before the Chaotic Stairway can find the magic array vulnerability and patch it.

The specific methods used were extremely cruel, a superhuman version of burning a sky lantern.

The key point is that they forcefully transformed what could have been a painless act of salvation into a process of burning souls.

There is certainly an element of venting anger involved, but not much; the main purpose is to reap the rewards.

From the perspective of the extraordinary and top-tier, while the wicked and the wicked are indeed a new type of crop containing extraordinary power, the extraordinary individuals are the same, and perhaps even better.

Throughout the myriad realms, there are countless examples of evil gods and demons regarding extraordinary beings as superior to ordinary blood-devouring beings.

And Black Rob's grand plan to sweep away all the major supernatural forces of this era, which he set out long ago, is also a kind of alternative harvesting and integration of supernatural resources.

In this respect alone, he is not much different from the Chaotic Staircase in essence, except that he seems to have a slightly higher bottom line.

With the Elf King faction revealing their true intentions—to abandon pretense and transform humanity into beasts imbued with dark, supernatural power for exploitation—they are ready to be harvested.

Not to be outdone, Black Rob also launched his harvesting plan.

Specifically, this includes making the best use of the high-ranking Victor.

Just like at this moment, the soul pain caused by extreme torture alone makes the victim instinctively create extraordinary soul energy fluctuations.

It is well known that emotions are contagious.

The most direct example is, for instance, a concert by a star band...

This infectious power derived from emotions is essentially a fluctuation of soul energy.

When enough souls can generate strong soul energy fluctuations, a field energy will be formed.

This energy field can be controlled and utilized by Victor using the technology of the Great Old Ones.

Whether it's collecting them to absorb various forms of dark supernatural power in a place where negative energy accumulates, or using them on-site to attract dark supernatural power from the surrounding area, both are good options.

However, if an ordinary person were in this situation, they would easily lose their Sanity and go insane.

Fortunately, this was a hidden camp on the Chaotic Staircase, and in Black Rob's eyes, there were no innocent people in such camps.

The earlier piercing alarm and shouts of "It's the Reaper!" could be considered unconventional aids that allowed Victor to successfully reap the rewards...

If you can't solve the problem, then solve the person who caused it.

If there's no good solution for the culprit right now, then we should first clip its wings and claws.

Actually, it's not impossible to fight a war between gods.

However, Black Rob believes that the Elven Kings would probably love for him to leave the Prime Material Plane and fight the gods in the Outer Planes or the Astral Plane.

Because, judging from the amount of top-tier rare resources he possesses, he is still very weak.

But as time goes on, he will quickly surpass all the gods, even their sum.

From this perspective, he believes that the Elf King's lineage may have been planning to hastily harvest some crops in preparation for a decisive battle against him during this plague.

After all, Luo Su had won several battles in the sacred duel in the new timeline, putting enough pressure on his opponent and making him realize that in terms of combat skills, it would be difficult for them to beat him. The only point on which they were more confident of winning was that 'his combat preparations were not sufficient'.

If there has to be a second reason, it's that he's a lone wolf, without reinforcements, and one loss could mean utter ruin.

This second point can also lead to another saying: "divide and conquer".

For example, right now, his first clone, Luo Su, has meticulously crafted a puppet army in a new timeline, which has been professionally armed for disaster relief and scattered all over the world.

This is a kind of differentiation.

He believed that the Chaotic Staircase wasn't simply taking the beatings without any countermeasures; rather, it was quietly making preparations for both scenarios.

One of the hands was trying to hack into his communication network in order to locate him.

On the other hand, they are building up a top-tier team in preparation for a decapitation strike.

Against this backdrop, the repeated raids on the secret camps of the Chaotic Staircase, coupled with the lack of effective countermeasures, may well be a way of lulling him into a false sense of security.

And the truth was indeed as Black Rob had guessed. But Black Rob only guessed part of it correctly.

The Chaotic Staircase wasn't actually wealthy or ambitious enough to sacrifice so many hidden camps to lull Black Robb into a false sense of security.

The organization itself has many inherent weaknesses.

It was forcibly created under the powerful influence of the Ghost Emperor.

There are too many detailed issues inside, which can be simply summarized into two parts: the inheritance of the bad and the lack of integration.

The problems in these two major sections, operating under pressure, directly exposed numerous issues. This forced the Chaotic Ladder to invest far more comprehensive resources than anticipated to ensure its normal operation.

The ultimate result is that if you ask whether the problem of the constant raids and massacres of the various secret camps can be solved, the answer is yes, and there is more than one way; but if you ask why it can't be solved? The answer is no.

It sounds contradictory, but it's not at all.

It's like you really like a pair of pants, but you accidentally tear a hole in them. The cost of mending them is enough to buy a new pair of pants of the same material and style, and you still have enough money left over for a nice breakfast. Which would you choose?
Of course, you could say, "Things have a price, but feelings are priceless. I've developed feelings for this piece, so I want to get it replaced."

The middle-level members of the chaotic staircase also said the same thing to their superiors, but they said it only to create a persona and to demand more funding.

The higher-ups knew this, but dared not open the door, especially given the current difficulties in harvesting the evil. As Black Robb had predicted, the Chaotic Ladder planned to learn from the advanced experience of the Dark Hell in its specific operations of harvesting the evil, employing a strategy of using one evil to control another.

The wicked possess a considerable degree of bestial instinct; the powerful have a certain degree of dominance over the weak.

Although this trend and characteristics were not obvious in the early stages of the plague outbreak, the Chaos Ladder, as the developer of the plague, was naturally aware of the various effects that this extraordinary plague could bring.

Their plan is to control the powerful evil spirits and use them to restrain the ordinary evil spirits to a certain extent, just like using prisoners to manage prisoners, which will greatly reduce the cost of harvesting.

The Ghost Emperor even described the assembly line operation to them, like a modern slaughterhouse. Pigs were herded onto a conveyor belt, and once they were in place, large clamp-like electric shockers clamped onto their heads from both sides. After 3-5 seconds, it was time for the next one, without even a scream...

But reality is far more bleak than expected.

Grand Duke Elrond, who established a production base in the Seshil Mine, may not be the only producer of the Wicked Controllers in the Chaos Ladder, but he is arguably the most important production force.

On the one hand, Elrond's experience in managing the Hell's operations is very useful; it's a perfect fit, and it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say it's unique within the Chaos Stairway.

On the other hand, Elrond's production power is of high value.

The value of Dark Hell lies not only in its creativity, but also in its organizational structure.

It can be said to be the force in this world that best plays with order and evil, bar none.

Its most prominent manifestation is its ability to train and discipline evil people.

Against this backdrop, Elrond is arguably the CEO who is best able to restrain the group of bad seeds in the Chaotic Ladder and make them produce efficiently.

As a result, not only did Elrond die, but the production team incubating at the Sehiel production base under his control was also indiscriminately sacrificed by Black Robo.

According to the original plan, these incubating production teams would split into branches, bringing Elrond's organizational structure and production system to other production bases and starting operations.

After being completely wiped out, the production capacity of the Chaotic Ladder's evil controller plummeted from a large factory mode back to a small workshop mode.

The output of the two is incomparable, and what's more troublesome is that product specifications have become difficult to standardize. After all, the large workshop model has too high a proportion of manual labor, and the proportion of manual labor relies too much on the skill of the craftsmen.

Changes in specifications mean increased usage costs and increased variability in usage.

In any case, the feedback from the first batch of controllers put into use was generally poor, and the control and maintenance costs were far higher than expected.

Therefore, from a certain perspective, the lack of resource turnover can be said to be one of the problems that Chaotic Ladder is currently facing.

This one problem has led to a myriad of related issues.

For example, the necessity of operating pre-arranged secret campsites.

To use a more vivid analogy: If the original plan was to raise 10,000 sheep, but in reality only less than 1,000 were raised, should the equipment and personnel introduced in advance for raising 10,000 sheep be reduced in time, or should the operation be maintained even if it is difficult?

This single issue caused a huge uproar on the Chaotic Staircase.

After all, even if the decision is made to downsize to some extent, deciding which companies to cut is a very real problem.

Should the capable rise and the mediocre step aside?

Sorry, as mentioned above, the inheritance of dross is a major problem in the Chaotic Ladder. Among the lower-level members, their professional abilities are questionable, but their ability to scheme and plot is exceptionally strong.

After all, these people were originally beneficiaries of various forces. In a sense, they were like bloodsuckers clinging to these forces. Their daily work was characterized by infighting rather than doing their jobs well.

Of course, there are also those with real talent and ability in the chaotic ladder, but this leads to the second major problem: lack of teamwork.

It was a new job and a new environment, which was very challenging. To make matters worse, I encountered a lot of bureaucrats, incompetent people, and people who used their positions for personal gain. You can imagine how difficult it was to get the job done.

It's no exaggeration to say that the power of the fallen gods in the material plane is comparable to the late stage of religious rule by the pantheon. Unless a major event occurs, they still seem like a thing, but once a major change happens, they will be found to be as broken and unusable as rotten tofu.

In fact, this characteristic was already evident when Black Robo clashed with S Company, causing a group of demons to slaughter his members and immediate family.

Whether among the common people, the royal family, or even their peers, no one expected that the renowned S Company, whose power was like oil boiling over a raging fire, would be so thoroughly defeated and utterly helpless. They were lucky to even survive, let alone retaliate.

Later, Black Robb took the initiative to back down and then personally stepped in to shift his attention to exploring the Pantheon ruins, which barely turned the tide.

The so-called "turning the page" is actually a preliminary result of S Company being severely damaged, with nearly half of its business being divided up by other forces.

If there are no remarkable signs of improvement in the future, according to the broken window theory, the division will continue.

This is why they also dispatched a relatively elite Pantheon exploration team, not wanting to lag behind. Even the weakest dog wants to show off; there are still a few teeth left in its mouth.

In fact, this is also a major reason why Black Rob was somewhat stunned by the plague.

He had a good understanding of the situation of various forces, and had even personally tested some of them. He felt that these forces were strong on the outside but weak on the inside, too big to be controlled, and had long been relying on inertia to operate and living off the old organizational structure.

One major reason why it seems to be developing so well is that it has stolen the benefits of technological development.

Technological progress has driven economic development, benefited the general public, and created a great deal of real wealth, most of which has been exploited by the rulers.

Among the rulers, the extraordinary power is the retired emperor who rides on the backs of the secular elites.

Therefore, supernatural forces actually create decay, while the prosperity of an era is the achievement of ordinary people.

Black Robb always believed that the top figures of various forces, and even the fallen gods, were aware of this situation.

After all, those who stand high and see far have a naturally grander perspective, and they should be clear about whether their subordinates are capable and which group truly creates value.

Going deeper, what has been troubling the fallen gods, and even the gods in general, all along is that the positive force of their organizations cannot keep up with the erosion of entropy, causing them to gradually decay, and they are unable to come up with new revitalization projects.

Various reasons have led to deeply entrenched problems that are difficult to reverse. Attempts to reform gradually have not yielded significant results, and even any achievements are quickly wiped out. Taking drastic measures will likely result in a sudden collapse.

After several attempts, it can only succumb to the state of 'gray balance'. If left unattended, it can barely function. But if you try to clean or reorganize it, it will be completely destroyed!

Because he recognized the true nature of the extraordinary forces controlled by the Fallen Gods, and believed that the Fallen Gods themselves were also aware of the nature of their own forces, Black Robb felt that such forces were unlikely to successfully perform major surgery, whether through external force or by operating on themselves. They lacked both the technology and the capability to do so.

As a result, the Demon Emperor succeeded, forcibly binding them together.

Regardless of what happens next, at least the chaotic staircase that was pieced together has completed the super poisoning operation. As for what will happen next, here's what Black Rob thinks.

Perhaps when the Demon Emperor was plotting this plague, he never intended to keep his promise.

Or perhaps, what the Demon Emperor promised was just one chance.

This opportunity is not one where all fallen gods can have a good ending simply by completing the task; rather, there are a few spots that fallen gods must compete for.

The fallen gods also use the same tactics against their subordinates.

It's not that everyone will live a life of luxury after the success, but rather that the winners will become like the chickens and dogs that ascend to heaven with their master.

So essentially, this is an alternative Ponzi scheme, a super high-stakes gamble...

(End of this chapter)