The copy has 0 error tolerance, and the last words on the ground are all wrong for me.

Chapter 542 Destructive Strategy
Valentine interrogated the players who were left behind, but the results were not ideal.

According to the player who ambushed him, although the raid team was a unified entity, everyone obeyed Loki's commands. Loki was responsible for devising the action plan, and only he knew the entire plan.

Other players only know partial information and are assigned a certain part of the task; they are not involved in the entire plan.

However, two things are certain about the attackers. First, from the moment they entered Ein City, their target was Valentine, and they wanted to obtain the complete evolution potion through Valentine.

Second, Loki's plan doesn't end there; he will definitely come back.

While Valentine was interrogating the players who had been left behind, Loki at the epidemic prevention center obtained the first bottle of the complete evolution potion. Loki noticed Valentine's loss of control, ordered Fox and others to guard the epidemic prevention center, and then led the other players out of the instance.

With Loki leaving Ein City, Valentine's daughter, like a puppet with its strings cut, fell completely silent.

Valentine looked at his daughter, temporarily losing sight of his objective. All he could do was wait for Loki to return to Ein City.

He could either let Loki help him find his daughter, or he would kill Loki.

He was a little tired and needed to rest before seeing Loki.

When he conquered the Complete Evolution Potion, he had already connected with the will of the Plague Source instance and become the de facto "Zombie King".

Driven by his desire for rest, the zombie horde in the disaster shelter quieted down and left, leaving Valentine alone.

The scene in Valentine's mind was frozen in time; this was everything that happened on the day of the Al Ain bombing.

Looking at Valentine, who had returned to stillness in his mental world, Wu Chang recalled how Valentine had single-handedly retraced the entire explosion, and a look of admiration appeared in his eyes.

No wonder he couldn't react at all when Valentine made his move. Even though the opponent's fighting skills weren't particularly advanced, he couldn't see through them whether he used the power of spatial origin or the Musou style.

No wonder Wendia said that the source of the plague was caused by a huge explosion, but the disaster shelter where everything happened was intact and showed no signs of having been exploded.

It turns out that the divinity Valentine possesses is actually a high-level thing called the divinity of time.

Whether in film and television works, games, or novels, aside from causal abilities, abilities related to time and space are all superior to ordinary beings.

If we have to make a comparison, time has an edge over space.

After all, space is the third dimension, while time is the fourth.

It can only be said that the divinity of time is well-deserved. Even though Valentine only grasped the basics and had not even established himself as a demigod, the power he displayed had already overwhelmed most demigods.

If Wu Chang didn't have the "Titan" title, he would probably have been instantly killed by it if he hadn't been prepared.

If Wu Chang was like this, then the fate of an ordinary demigod or even a god would be even more unimaginable. In the face of the power of time, ordinary divinity is powerless to resist.

If an entity of the same level wants to defeat Valentine, it can only rely on its thick skin and tough flesh to withstand Valentine's attacks and launch counterattacks during the gaps in Valentine's abilities.

He couldn't help but click his tongue, thinking to himself that this time he was seeing a truly strange mechanism; nothing was more mechanic-driven than time reversal and time stop.

However, his subtle presence and ability to spread poison are precisely Valentine's greatest nemesis.

Even the divinity of time has its limits. Valentine can only control a few seconds. In a direct confrontation, a few seconds is enough to kill the opponent hundreds of times, but when faced with a deadly poison that has seeped into the bone marrow, rewinding a few seconds is of no use.

That's the downside of mechanic-based monsters; once they encounter a counter-mechanic, their combat power drops instantly, unlike stat-based monsters which have guaranteed upper and lower limits.

Wu Chang shifted his gaze from Valentine and looked at the messy disaster shelter, sorting through everything that had happened.

Whether it's the player's confession captured by Valentine or Loki's actions in Ein City, both reveal one piece of information: his primary goal is the evolution potion.

Completing his vision of the evolution potion was even more important than conquering the Plague Source dungeon.

In order to complete the evolution potion, Loki made a lot of preparations for the plague source dungeon in Ein City and was very familiar with the composition of the Ein City survivor organization.

Once he entered the Plague Origin instance, he easily brought the survivor organizations together and then made deals with several of the leading organizations.

From Wolf's memories, it can be seen that Loki was deeply bound to the previous leaders of the organization. They had been conducting secret experiments behind Valentine's back. These secret experiments were probably the truth behind the zombie plague in Ein City.

Fox's Mind World mentioned that Burton Pharmaceuticals began its layout in Ain City three years ago, gradually deploying its senior executives to Ain City and making it a part of the city.

Two years ago, a zombie plague broke out, and an expert team entered Ain City multiple times, building a huge virus laboratory underground in the epidemic prevention center.

The authorities and companies joined forces to seal off Ain City. Instead of helping uninfected survivors evacuate or rushing to research zombie serum, they turned Ain City into a "testing ground" where entry was permitted but exit was not.

They also told the residents of Ain that the zombie plague was controllable and that as long as they took precautions, they could fully resume their daily activities.

With a laissez-faire attitude, the zombie plague continued to evolve, eventually leading to the massive outbreak a few months ago.

A zombie plague has broken out, turning over 90% of the citizens of Ain into zombies. The authorities have maintained a lockdown and have not taken any further action. Meanwhile, pharmaceutical companies continue to send small teams into Ain to collect data on the zombie plague and to conduct biological experiments on the zombies.

Throughout the entire timeline, from the very beginning, all the forces outside of Ein City focused on the zombie plague itself, and no one cared what would happen to Ein City.

Their concern wasn't about the dangers of the zombie plague itself, but rather that it was disappearing too quickly and wouldn't last.

Considering that many survivors in Ain City gained superhuman strength after the zombie plague, it's not hard to see that this is the true purpose of the authorities and pharmaceutical companies.

They allowed the zombie plague to spread because they wanted to find a way to enable large-scale human evolution.

The changes that occurred in these survivors were exactly what they wanted, but it wasn't enough; they wanted more.

So they bribed the local survivors in Ein City, activated the hidden agents they had planted in Ein City, and continuously sent out action teams to gather intelligence in order to complete the new human evolution potion they wanted.

Therefore, once the premise changes and it is discovered that the action team representing the government, pharmaceutical companies, survivor alliances, and players all aims to complete the new human evolution potion, rather than end the plague, then everything they have done instantly makes sense.

It is precisely because their fundamental purposes and needs are different that the "stabbing of revenge" seems out of place, and that the leaders of various organizations are so ruthless and merciless when they betray Valentine.

From the very beginning, Valentine, as the strongest survivor, was the strongest experimental subject in this large-scale experiment.

From the very beginning, the new human evolution potion was meant to be born within Valentine's body.

In this scheme in which everyone participated, they finally obtained the last piece of the puzzle to complete the evolution potion: Loki's team.

What they didn't know was that, in Loki's eyes, these survivors of Ain City were also part of the puzzle.

Thinking of Loki, Wu Chang couldn't help but frown.

He could tell that Loki was very good at navigating dungeons, but he disliked Loki's methods of doing so.

His method of conquering dungeons is to explore the secrets happening in the dungeon dimension, find the root cause of the chaos in the dungeon dimension, and eliminate it.

This trend began when Eileen established a large divine kingdom, and became increasingly clear after she acquired the titles "True Walker" and "Fortune Stealer" and gained control of the power of order.

Although he wields the power of chaos and is a Knight of Discord, what he does is eliminate chaos and conflict.

After all, the dungeons he conquers will eventually be incorporated into his own divine kingdom, which will all be his property. Who would want their territory to be in chaos every day?

Moreover, Eileen is the Goddess of Light, not the Goddess of War. It is only when the world is in peace and order that it is easier to gain faith.

In contrast to him, Loki's method of conquering dungeons was not to restore order, but to completely destroy it.

In a sense, Loki was more like a player than he was. He could sense that in Loki's eyes, the dungeons of the Abyss game were just games, and the native inhabitants of the dungeon planes were just data, not life.

Loki is willing to do anything to the native inhabitants as long as it's to his advantage and he can help him achieve his goals, without any moral qualms, and he even enjoys it.

Loki's destructive dungeon-crawling method is like the Fourth Calamity in the traditional sense.

He needs to complete the new human evolution potion, one of the key ingredients of which is the blood of powerful zombies or survivors.

To achieve this goal, he naturally set his sights on Valentine.

In the rules of the plague origin plane, only a strong obsession can create powerful zombies and survivors. For Valentine, finding and protecting his daughter is his greatest obsession.

So, not long after entering the instance, he used some method to create a fake Valentine's daughter and promised Valentine that he could turn the zombies back into humans.

By giving Valentine hope, he continuously increases Valentine's obsession.

The obsession with finding and saving his daughter was not enough to create an evolution potion that would satisfy Loki. So he went a step further, first actually helping Valentine restore his daughter to normal, and then immediately causing him to fall into the abyss.

To create this scene, he went so far as to first reverse the zombies back into humans from tens of thousands of citizens of Ein City, and then infect them into even more powerful zombies.

How fortunate you are to regain what you've lost, the more resentful you feel when you lose it again.

Valentine, who sacrificed everything to protect his daughter amidst the zombie horde, reached the level of obsession Loki desired. So Loki immediately arranged for the player to inject Valentine with an evolution potion, thus obtaining the final step in creating the evolution potion.

But Loki's intentions clearly go beyond that.

According to Thompson and other survivor leaders, everything Valentine suffered was a necessary sacrifice for the creation of the evolution potion.

Little did they know that in Loki's eyes, they were also part of the sacrifice.

With Loki's abilities, how could he not know that the control ritual he set up could not penetrate Valentine's will at all?
By leaving Thompson and others in the disaster shelter, he was also using them as sacrifices to drive these backstabbers to rage and incite Valentine to push his boundaries further.

Thinking further, before taking action, Loki gave Thompson and the others each a dose of an experimental New Human evolution serum.

Loki, through Thompson and others, triggers Valentine's further breakthrough, while also freeing Valentine from his constraints and forcing Thompson and others to drink the evolution potion and voluntarily turn into zombies.

This weakens the survivor faction belonging to the Order in the instance and increases the pollution value of the plane.

The loss of control of the Plague Source instance is directly related to Loki's final actions.

After clarifying everything that happened in the Plague Origin instance, a question arises: Why did Loki do this?
The Plague Source instance is not difficult; in fact, in the databases of the four major organizations, the Plague Source can be considered a "welfare" instance. The rules of the instance are more challenging than the special zombies within it.

After all, in terms of overall strength, the zombie horde in Ein City is not even as strong as the survivor alliance in Ein City.

If it weren't for the fact that the top survivor organizations each had their own agendas, coupled with the deliberate leniency of external pharmaceutical companies, Ein City could conquer itself without player intervention.

However, spurred on by Loki, the contamination level of the Plague Source instance should have exceeded 85 at the last moment. If Loki can complete the instance, he will not only reap a large amount of completion rewards, but also break the deadlock directly.

Why didn't Loki do that?
Wu Chang squinted, recalling the attack on Base 44 by the source of the plague, and also thinking about the unfinished complete new human evolution potion in the basement of the CDC.

Because the Plague Source instance is too simple and the energy level is too low, it suppresses the upper limit of power within the plane.

Within the rules of the plane, the amount of fully evolved potions that can be obtained is limited, enough to complete certain tasks, but not enough to catch Loki's eye.

To obtain higher quality evolution potions, Valentine must become stronger and break through the dimensional limit. The best way to break through the dimensional limit is to make it go out of control and become an erosion instance.

In this way, both the plane itself and the final boss of the plane can receive almost unlimited upgrades.

In fact, at the end of the Big Bang, Valentine was able to break through the limit and condense the divinity of time precisely because the instance went out of control and removed the limit of the plane.

Under normal circumstances, the source of the plague that transforms into an eroding instance is hard to find an opponent in the Realm of Reason.

The tricky dimensional rules are enough to drive most players crazy. For example, Base 44 can only struggle to hold on against a horde of zombies.

If Base 44 had not had walls that could physically isolate the zombie horde, the original inhabitants of the base would have been instantly infected by the zombie plague and become the source of the plague.

Even if they encounter a tough opponent, such as a γ-level dungeon or a high-level player above level 50, once they push back the zombie horde and fight their way to the core of the Plague Source dungeon, Valentine, who possesses the divinity of time, will give them a huge surprise.

Having survived the zombie horde battle, the Breaker will likely lower their guard, and will inevitably face Valentine's first kill.

As the boss of the erosion instance, whether the instance conquers other private spaces or he personally kills the Breaker, allowing the abyssal erosion within the Breaker to merge into the instance, it will lead to an increase in the overall strength of the instance.

As the embodiment of the dungeon's will, his strength will continue to increase.

If all goes well, once Valentine reaches the strength Loki desires, Loki will appear, reaping Valentine's power while simultaneously completing the true, perfect evolution potion he envisions.

The effects of that potion, which Loki considered the true complete evolution potion, would certainly be greater than breaking through a β-level dungeon with a high degree of completion.

Thinking of this, Wu Chang couldn't help but want to applaud Loki.

He applauded Loki's methods. Although he disliked Loki's destructive approach to conquering dungeons, he couldn't deny that it was effective and that Loki used it well.

Among the original inhabitants of the instance, whether they are enemies, friends, or ordinary people, they are all his pawns. Morality, desire, emotions, and instance rules are all his tools. Even the out-of-control mechanism of the Abyss Game, and the players and game-breakers located in the Realm of Reason, are all part of his scheme.

This kind of dungeon strategy, which utilizes all conditions and mechanisms to achieve its own goals and transcends the rules and mechanisms, was something Wu Chang had never seen before, and it truly broadened his horizons.

He admired Loki's methods, but the more important reason he applauded Loki was to thank him for Loki's arrangements, which allowed him to obtain this "gift from nature."

Loki had foreseen everything, and it's even very likely that he sent people to monitor the direction of the instance from the moment the plague's origin instance went out of control, so that if he really provoked a master, he could reap the rewards in advance.

Even if there's no time to harvest the loot, Loki's Fox, who was stationed underground at the pandemic center, would blow up the lab to prevent others from benefiting.

However, Loki did not expect to encounter him when the source of the plague attacked an ordinary private space.

It can be said that it was fate, and it can also be considered a blessing for his habit of eliminating chaos when tackling dungeons.

Leaving Valentine's inner world and returning to the hall of the disaster shelter, Valentine's physical condition was almost completely exhausted.

He took out a syringe, inserted it directly into his heart, drew out a full vial of blood, and handed it to Wu Chang.

The blood contained tiny golden specks, revealing that the vial Valentine had drawn contained the essence of his power, comparable to the lifeblood of a world instance.

Valentine said with his last breath:

"Below the epidemic prevention center, the method for making the evolution potion is recorded. Using my blood as raw material, the real planned potion can be made."

"Whoever you are, please help me find my daughter and protect her for me."

Wu Chang nodded and said:
"I will try my best."

Valentine looked relieved. He wanted to say something, but then swallowed his words and said:
"Thank you."

As Valentine's aura slowly dissipated, a deep red resentment condensed from his body and attached itself to Wu Chang.

Find Valentine's missing daughter and kill Loki.

(End of this chapter)