Scourge Messenger

Chapter 44: The End of the First Day

Qian Gongyu knew about the Iron Blood Cemetery, which was a secret realm controlled by the Jie family and one of the most valuable secret realms in the entire Liang Kingdom.

The Iron Blood Cemetery was only a second-rank secret realm, yet it could produce third-rank tokens—and indeed, third-rank defense tokens. It was precisely because of this unique advantage that the Jie family had been able to stand tall in Jiangnan for a thousand years, remaining a top-tier family despite the shifts of dynasties.

But... the Blade Warrior outside is the Demon King of the Iron Blood Cemetery?

Doesn't that mean -

"Could it be that all the statues that can be built here are from demon kings in other secret realms?" Shang Xinlei speculated. "I was just thinking, if each wave of demons is stronger than the last, then creations like wooden crossbows and catapults will soon be vulnerable. Because among the demons, there are many humanoid demons that are extremely fast and can even cut through arrows. Even among the beast demons, there are many with thick skin and flesh that are not afraid of crossbows. The Barbarian Bull Demon is a prime example."

"But if we can get other Demon Kings to fight for us, it will be different. A Demon King like the Double Blade General has extremely high lethality but lacks defense. As long as we create opportunities for him to attack, even if he is only a second-level Demon King, he can easily kill the Barbarian Bull Demon with his sword!"

Shang Xinlei stared at Jiang Shi, hoping that Jiang Shi would agree with her guess.

"Blade Warrior has lost 30% of its durability."

Jiang Shi suddenly said something, and after a moment she seemed to realize that no one might understand, so she explained: "When the durability reaches zero, the Blade Warrior will turn back into a statue."

"We have to go out and help!" Jie Yuanshao pushed open the door impatiently and went out. "A wooden crossbow definitely can't kill the wild bull monster. We can only rely on our dual swords... and the Blade Warriors to deal with it!"

"I've fought against demons so many times, but this is the first time I'm fighting alongside them." Shang Xinlei said with a smile.

Qian Gongyu was not as excited as they were. She took out a few pieces of spiritual jade from her trouser pocket and absorbed them, then walked outside with a painful look on her face.

……

...

"Finally finished."

Yan Qing put down the game console, turned his wrists, stood up and stretched his arms and legs, and felt his butt was stiff from sitting.

It took them only fifteen minutes to defeat the first wave of monsters in the Mansu Forest, but they actually took a full hour to fight the second wave - it was rare for an MMORPG to have such a long battle. If it were a mobile game, they would probably die instantly and the planner's mother would be sold out.

However, Yan Qing had anticipated this: the monster offensive was set up according to a normal four-player team, but except for "Jiang Shi", the other three were not players at all, and the collected supplies had to be manually transported back to the wooden house, unlike "Jiang Shi" who could receive them directly into the warehouse.

This means that even after two resource collections, the resources in the shelter are still far from sufficient, and the defense strength is naturally unable to withstand the monster attack. Then they chose to build guardian trees and guardian stones, which is simply increasing the difficulty.

Yan Qing only realized halfway through that resource-generating structures like Guardian Trees and Guardian Stones, designed for long-term development, were completely traps. Anyone who built them was a fool. More accurately, resource-generating structures were essentially "trading current combat power for more resources," with the trade-off being that the player had to make up for the lost combat power themselves.

Jiang Shi's team wasn't collecting enough resources to begin with, and instead of immediately exchanging them for combat power, they were reproducing resources. It would be strange if the battle wasn't difficult. If Yan Qing was right, the team needed at least one player at level 4 or higher to build resource-producing buildings early on. However, this team's average strength was less than level 2, and there was even someone like Jiang Shi who hadn't reached level 2.

Outside the yard, the wall had already collapsed, five wooden crossbows had been destroyed, and the guardian tree had been knocked down. It was even the first to be knocked down. Obviously, in the demon's attack logic, 'obstacles' > 'resource reproduction buildings' > 'attack buildings' > 'players'. As long as there is a chance, the demon will destroy the players' hard-earned financial resources to let the players know that not everyone is qualified to invest in reproduction.

Jie Yuanshao and the other two no longer cared about their noble demeanor and ladylike demeanor, collapsing exhaustedly on the grass soaked with the blood and flesh of the wild bull. The Blade Warrior, with only 5% of its durability remaining, transformed back into a statue, but compared to before, it was noticeably more damaged.

A new message popped up in the game. Yan Qing glanced at it and copied the message into the chat bar. Then, after the AI ​​automatically evolved it, Jiang Shi spoke it out:

"There's two pieces of bad news."

Shang Xinlei sat on the ground with her legs spread apart, not caring at all about exposing herself. She panted and laughed, "Let's talk about the less bad one first."

"The less bad news is that the statue can only recover 10% of its durability every two quarters of an hour. With three quarters of an hour remaining until the next attack, the statue will only have recovered 20% of its durability by the time the next wave begins."

"What's the worse news?"

"The worse news is that if we leave now, we'll have 35 minutes to gather resources tomorrow before we can start the monster offensive." This suddenly sounded strange. Leaving early and having more time to prepare tomorrow shouldn't be good news? But everyone here was smart, and Jie Yuanshao quickly understood the underlying meaning of both pieces of information: "If we can hold out until the third or even fourth wave, we'll score significantly more points. But if we leave, we'll have to start from the first wave tomorrow?"

"Yes."

Everyone looked at each other, and Jie Yuanshao said, "I haven't tried my best yet, what about you?"

"Me neither." Shang Xinlei stood up and patted his butt, "But Xiaoyu can't hold on any longer, right?"

Qian Gongyu was startled and stammered, "I, I can actually still..."

"Get out."

Jiang Shi said, "You don't even have the energy to gather resources. The third wave will undoubtedly be even more difficult than the second. Without sufficiently powerful structures, you won't be able to defeat them."

With that, Jiang Shi headed straight for the thick fog behind the stone house. Qian Gongyu breathed a sigh of relief and quickly got up to follow him. Jie Yuanshao suddenly remembered something and rushed over, shouting, "Jiang Shi, Qian Gongyu, wait a minute! I have something to tell you!"

"Go out and tell them that if we stay here a moment longer, we'll have a moment less to collect things tomorrow."

The four of them stepped into the thick fog. Unlike when they came in, the fog did not separate them. After trudging through the fog for a while, they saw light at the end.

The moment I stepped out of the dense fog, the glare of the sun turned the screen of my game console white, as if it had been hit by a flashbang. The dazzling midday sun shone on the open space at the entrance, and the chirping of birds echoed through the woodland.

"It's out!"

"They're coming out!"

With their appearance, the crowd scattered around the entrance area erupted in excitement. Many nobles even rushed out of their tents and carriages, as if being a second late would be a disadvantage. Soon, a large crowd had gathered around them. They looked at Qian Gongyu and the other three with eyes filled with curiosity, envy, and even jealousy, like starving chickens, eager to pounce and peck them to death.

But they all stood obediently on the periphery, watching because there was a man standing in the middle of the clearing. No one dared to approach him. Not only because of the purple ribbon tied around his wrist, but also because he was the strongest person in this forest.

"Third Uncle?"

Jie Yuanshao walked in front of the others and asked in surprise, "Why are you here?"

"I came to see you when I was passing by, and planned to wait for you to go back together." The man said with a smile.

But Jie Yuanshao didn't give him any face at all: "Uncle San got into trouble and doesn't dare to go back alone, right?"

"It's not really a problem. But I'm a filial son and I don't want to upset your grandmother, so I decided to bring my good granddaughter with me to see her so she wouldn't get angry."

"Thank goodness I'm so filial, otherwise I would have missed such an interesting thing."

He stepped forward, glancing at Shang Xinlei, Qian Gongyu, and Jiang Shi before fixing his gaze on Jiang Shi and smiling, "Nice to meet you. I'm Jie Yuanshao's third uncle, and the spearmanship instructor of the Jiangbei Military Commandery, Jie Zilong."

Is it a third-level messenger?

Although he'd anticipated this, Yan Qing was still a little nervous about being surrounded by so many people, even being targeted by people over level 30. But as long as Jiang Shi finished the dungeon, even if things got chaotic, Yan Qing didn't mind. At most, he'd just lose a small account.

However, at this moment, a trembling figure stood in front of Jiang Shi.

"She, she is my family's bodyguard. If you have anything, please tell me." Qian Gongyu used the most cowardly tone to say the most tough words.

She turned her head to look at Jiang Shi, her accent coming out as she lowered her voice, "Don't alarm me. The Jie family... The Jie family wouldn't forcefully take a woman from me, right?"

(End of this chapter)