On my second playthrough, they were full of malice towards me.

Disappearing from the public eye for the time being and staying within the Zero Dream is undoubtedly the best option.

"Since Lord Ash isn't in a hurry, could you grant Tia a small wish?"

"Uh"

"Tia wants to feed Lord Ash the cherry fruit that she couldn't feed him that night, one more time."

"Now, here? This isn't a good idea. This is Dream Zero, it belongs to Zero."

"No, it has to be here, this is perfect! Zero likes witch-style fallen nuns, right? Then I'll indulge her. Illusions are so boring. Lord Ash, let's put on a real performance for Zero!"

The servant squadron was asked to patrol the area, and so was 86.

Control One: "Number 86, your attention span has been detected to be below the standard. Please focus on performing the commander's tasks. Otherwise, I will report to the commander after the patrol is completed."

"You idiot, you've lost your home and you're still patrolling," Number 86 said angrily and helplessly.

"I'm sorry, I don't understand what 86 means. What do you mean by 'home'? How is it determined to be gone? If this intelligence is extremely urgent, should we notify the commander?"

Control Officer No. 1 was asking questions meticulously and methodically.

"Sighing. Number 86 advises you not to go; you can't beat her, and even all of us combined can't beat her."

"Who is she referring to? Saintess Sthiuthia? Why attack the saintess?"

"Your program can't explain this. Number 86 thinks your intelligence level is too low and doesn't bother to communicate with you anymore," he replied perfunctorily.

After performing the calculations, Control One was not angry with 86, because she felt that she was indeed not as smart as the 86 of the same model.

That's why she asked:

"So what should we do next?"

This problem (86) also seems to have undergone a short analysis and calculation.

Only then was a conclusion reached.

Very simple.

"We must hurry up and get our master to find our sister so she can back us up," said Number 86, a master of military strategy, who actually wanted to let the two sides fight and the third party benefit.

Happy Valentine's Day! May you all be happy!

Chapter 242 Target: Dragon War Zone

Sthiutia's fruit platters are truly exceptional.

Besides cherries, it also contains peaches, juice, strawberries, grapes, ice cream, and more.

After the two made up for the interruption of their celebration that night by "Zero," Styutia looked as if she had filled a void in her life, her face full of satisfaction.

After a brief moment of leisure, back to business, Liao Ji called back 86, who was in charge of patrolling the area, and Control One, to prepare for the next steps.

Having finally managed to temporarily complete the main account launch, Liao Ji wanted to take advantage of having Sciutia, a top-tier combatant, to support him and see if he could go straight to Zero and speedrun through Zero's Dream.

However, the response from Control No. 1 thwarted Liao Ji's plan.

"I'm sorry, Commander, we do not have the base's coordinates."

No coordinates?

I don't know where the base is?

Liao Ji was puzzled because the "base" was the place where Zero hibernated and should also be the resurrection point for all the servants. However, the controller number one, who was a servant, did not know this.

Seeing Liao Ji's confusion, Control One quickly continued to explain:

"We do not have a procedure for retaining base coordinates. Once deployed to the corresponding war zone, the only way to return to the base is through destruction in combat, as part of our ideology."

Control One means that all the servants are sent out to fight "blindfolded". From the moment they leave the base, there is no turning back. They can only stay on the battlefield for the rest of their lives.

Liao Ji's perspective seems absurd at first glance, as it's a question of what frontline soldiers are not allowed to go home. However, from the perspective of the mech servants, it seems quite reasonable. Their mission is to fight, and everything else is "unnecessary" programming.

It seems that taking shortcuts won't work. If we want to find the base and Zero, we can only follow the rules of Zero's Dream.

Only after clearing the remaining three war zones, just like in Witch War Zone, and the world's calamity disappears, will the base appear.

This gave Liao Ji the feeling that he couldn't unlock the later areas in the game until he had cleared the "previous level".

The remaining three world bosses are the dragon, the witch, and the fairy.

It was obvious which one to attack first, so Liao Ji directly set "Evil Dragon War Zone" as the next target.

After all, based on her experience in Witch Wars Zone, once she passes the test of the "evil dragon," her real-life counterpart, the real dragon girl, will also be able to appear.

If Liao Ji felt that just having Sishutia alone was not enough, then with Jiu You added to the mix, Liao Ji was very confident that he could easily sweep through Zero Dream.

With the target set, we can set off immediately. The coordinates of the Dragon War Zone are recorded inside the No. 1 control system. Originally, the servants planned to activate flight mode and carry Liao Ji and the others there. At the speed of "Forward Three", it would take about a day to get there.

However, Styutia was no mere decoration here. After obtaining the coordinates from Control One, the nun chanted on the spot, and a huge pentagram holy rune array appeared beneath everyone's feet.

The next moment, a dense radiance enveloped everyone on the magic circle, and Liao Ji and his servants disappeared from the spot.

When Liao Ji regained his vision, the previously purified land had returned to its barren and cracked state, with a murky red hue filling the air. Directly in front of them, they could see the shadow of a huge building that resembled a city.

Liao Ji was very familiar with this.

This is the symbol of a true power in the wasteland—the Base.

In the old world, the scale of power was divided from villages to settlements, then to shelters, and finally to fortified cities made of steel and concrete.

No matter how many people a faction has, it will always just be a gathering place and a sanctuary. Only when they can own their own city in the wasteland can they truly enter the ranks of "bases".

Upon arriving at the Dragon War Zone and seeing the outline of the base in the distance, Liao Ji revealed an expression of expectation.

He had anticipated this.

The witch recounts Styutia's past experiences, so correspondingly, the dragon should also be Jiuyou's past.

Jiuyou was the third among "them" to meet him.

Sciutia helped herself become the regional overlord at the settlement level, and then Zero's arrival allowed the Ash Settlement to be successfully upgraded to the Ash Sanctuary.

If he wanted to develop further, he would have to transform from a "shelter" to a "base," so he urgently needed a city at that time.

Building a city yourself requires a lot of resources and is too risky, so naturally, Liao Ji in the game thought of simply seizing an existing one and taking it over.

There are also differences in strength between bases. With my own strength at the time, I could at most take down the lowest-level city base, and I also had to consider whether there were other allied forces behind the base.

So in the end, Liao Ji remembered very clearly that he set his sights on the "Gurasai" base, which was right across from the city in the Evil Dragon War Zone.

This base, rife with chaos and violence, thrived on gambling and slavery, and was renowned for its "arena."

It was here that he met Jiuyou.

Memories of past games flashed through Liao Ji's mind, urging him to lead the group into the city.

At the city gate entrance, you can see many wasteland people coming in and out of the base. These are all NPCs created by Zero Dream. Therefore, Styutia couldn't help but suggest that she attack the city directly, so that the "evil dragon" would appear immediately.

But the response was a rejection from Control No. 1.

"I'm sorry, but different evil kings have different personalities. This approach works for witches, but it's different for dragons. There is no record of a dragon showing itself on its own initiative."

Styutia opened her mouth, seemingly wanting to defend herself, but what she said was indeed true. Sister Jiuyou's personality was never the arrogant type; she was even a bit withdrawn, rarely speaking and mostly silent, just like the Empress in reality who always stayed out of the world and locked herself in the Dragon Palace for seclusion.

In the context of the dream world, finding the witch's trial is simple: just enter the witch's area to trigger it.

But the dragon was different. After entering the Gurasai base, everyone acted as if nothing had happened, without giving them any hints about what to do next, where the test was, or how to start it.

This is probably why Kyle Technology has only obtained the Witch's Mark over the years. They are also completely clueless about the dragon, which is why they are frantically searching for ancient scholars in the hope of obtaining a "strategy" guide.

Yes.

After all, no matter what people do in later generations, they probably can't imagine that the current empress was once just a gladiator in the arena.

Therefore, for Liao Ji, finding the evil dragon and triggering the trial was not a difficult task.

Liao Ji carefully recalled the map of Gurasai and followed the path he had taken. Fortunately, although there were some differences, he still managed to find the behind-the-scenes force operating the "Arena".

This time, Liao Ji did not choose to be a "spectator" as before, but instead relied on the connections behind the scenes to participate in the arena as a "gladiator" through internal channels.

After all, Liao Ji came here not only to clear Zone Zero, but also because he really wanted to take this opportunity to understand the "past" side of "them" that he had never known before.

Chapter 243 Arena and Gladiators

arena.

It will always exist in any era, even in a wasteland world that is on the verge of collapse.

Once a force reaches the scale of a "base," it means that at least "survival" is no longer the biggest challenge, and the people within the base can resume some of their lives, especially the powerful and wealthy.

Given this situation, entertainment naturally emerged, and the most popular form of entertainment in the wasteland was undoubtedly combat.

Here, audiences exchange goods for currency to buy tickets and witness a series of bloody battles presented by the organizers, entirely composed of Evil Ones, either against monsters or among Evil Ones themselves.

If you want to support your favorite player, the best way is to place a bet. After winning the battle, you can receive a reward based on the odds.

For this reason, this place is not only a holy site for watching carnage, but also a casino where one can get rich overnight, and is regarded as a place to make a fortune by countless crazy arena spectators.

Every now and then, there are stories of lucky individuals who bet on players that no one else believed in, only to have those players suddenly become phenomenal, eliminating all the established players and ultimately making their bettors a fortune.

When violence and gambling are combined, this element, etched into our most primal genes, always manages to pique people's interest the most.

Of course, besides spectators who bet on the games and can make money, joining the arena and becoming a gladiator is also a way to earn money.

Especially the top gladiators, who have a huge audience base, can earn extremely generous appearance fees and bonuses for each match.

Newcomers aren't without opportunities either, especially after a dark horse upsets a popular top gladiator in a fight. Even newcomers can become famous overnight and earn huge rewards, since it's very fair here and strength is always the most important factor.

Therefore, many desperate people, bankrupt individuals who have given up on themselves, and even normal afflicted individuals have come to Gurasai, willingly becoming gladiators.

Of course, "gladiator" is a nicer official term; in reality, they were slaves in the arena.

After all, from the moment they sign the contract and become gladiators, they are bound by permanent shackles. Unless the arena voluntarily relinquishes them and removes the shackles, the gladiators themselves cannot voluntarily withdraw.

But perhaps in a post-apocalyptic wasteland where survival is a matter of living one day at a time and danger lurks everywhere, selling one's soul and body and relying on fighting to survive is not such a bad choice.

At least for subhumans, this is the case.

Demi-humans are born with strong physiques and have a natural advantage over humans in combat, but their survival has always been a problem. They do not have human minds, cannot predict natural disasters, and cannot build tall cities.

Many subhuman races live in tribes, struggling to survive in the wasteland, and their power is far less than that of humans.

Therefore, some subhumans chose to join human wasteland bases in order to survive, but they were usually used as laborers and exploited.