Douluo Continent: Starting with controlling Ning Rongrong and establishing the Holy Cult

……

Chapter 65 The Bad Ending of the Game

"Zizi...Zizi..."

Lu Ma took off his headphones and threw them far away.

There was static coming from the headphones.

Not only his headphones, but his computer screen also started flickering and displaying glitches. Luckily, he quickly switched back to the desktop and confirmed that it was just a game effect, not a virus damaging his computer.

Thinking about it that way, the sound coming from the headphones should be the sound of the game, not that the headphones are broken.

He quickly realized it was a game menu, but he had no idea why this Easter egg appeared.

"Let's wait and see," he muttered.

After a long while, the screen returned to normal, the distorted display gradually disappeared, and at the same time, several lines of crooked red text appeared.

Please allow me to introduce you to a new mechanic in the game—the Mental Pollution System.

[After killing an important NPC, your mental pollution level will continue to rise. Continuing to kill during this period will significantly increase your mental pollution level.]

The upper limit of mental pollution tolerance is related to mental strength level; the higher the mental strength level, the less susceptible one is to pollution.

Your current mental pollution level is 42/38, where 38 is the upper limit. This means your mind has been polluted.

[When your mind is corrupted, you will suffer from numerous debuffs, such as missing visual system components, missing auditory system components, missing control system components, missing save/load system components, and so on.]

However, you will also receive combat-related buffs, and you will be able to hear sounds and see things that are not visible to those whose minds are not corrupted.

[Respectfully submitted by the leader of the Holy Spirit Cult, □□□]

……

……

"So I can't just kill people randomly? What about this important NPC? Why isn't there any explanation?"

Lu Ma muttered to himself, finally finishing reading all the red text. The distorted red text was really quite uncomfortable to look at. But combined with the final signature, it seemed to make perfect sense.

"The leader of the Holy Spirit Cult... that's someone you should only encounter late in the game, but he's already appeared. His name is a bunch of gibberish, obviously to keep me from knowing... is he trying to avoid spoilers? So, the leader of the Holy Spirit Cult isn't that one called Holy Spirit?"

"So is this an Easter egg, or is it the Holy Spirit Cult leader's AI working its magic?" Lu Ma pondered for a long time, then decided to ignore it. "Never mind, let's keep watching—wait, what's the matter?"

The world seemed to have lost its color. In Ning Rongrong's eyes, she could only distinguish black and white: the floor was black, people were black, buildings were black, and the sky was white.

The ball rolled on the ground, leaving a puddle of white water.

She ended her fourth soul skill prematurely; the pagoda crashed down and then disappeared.

Where Yu Xiaogang stood, only a pool of white ink remained.

Something seemed to have splashed onto Ning Rongrong's face. Although Lu Ma wasn't actually there, judging from the game's visuals, he also felt the liquid was icy cold.

The game gave Ning Rongrong a black and white close-up of her face. Her pupils lost their highlights, and the corners of her mouth were involuntarily turned outwards, making her look strange. Her mental state was "quite good," which was consistent with the situation of being contaminated.

The tinnitus stopped, and a familiar voice came through the headphones.

"teacher!"

"Rongrong!"

Ning Rongrong didn't put away the Eight Spider Lances, but instead looked at Tang San. However, this wasn't Lu Ma controlling them, which is why Lu Ma exclaimed "Eh!"

The game has entered a special cutscene, but unlike the previous ones, this cutscene has removed the "skip" option.

Or perhaps, this isn't animation at all; it's just that the negative feedback from mental pollution completely deprived Rikuma of control, making him think it's animation.

The screen gradually darkened.

The other six belatedly realized what had happened and rushed forward to check on Yu Xiaogang and Ning Rongrong.

The five people besides Tang San surrounded Ning Rongrong, with Xiao Wu and Zhu Zhuqing each holding one of her hands, looking at Ning Rongrong with concern.

The others also looked at Ning Rongrong with concern.

When Ning Rongrong reached level 40, what kind of soul beast's soul ring she absorbed, and what kind of soul skill she obtained were no longer important at this moment.

The important thing is that Ning Rongrong killed people—their new teacher and Flander's best friend.

They did consider teaching Yu Xiaogang a lesson, but they never thought of killing him.

The word "murder" was still too early for them.

However, Ning Rongrong had already taken action, and the incident had already occurred.

Ning Rongrong seemed to be making another move. This time, she walked towards Tang San, her eight spider spears moving nimbly, as if she were warming up.

"Wait a minute, Rongrong, what are you doing?"

—That was Zhu Zhuqing's voice, and it was the last thing Lu Ma heard after the game screen went completely dark.

【game over】

[Ending Q1]

Two lines of white text lit up in front of Lu Ma.

Lu Ma frowned: "I've already reached the end? Although that Holy Spirit Cult leader talked a lot about the benefits and drawbacks of mental pollution, in reality, mental pollution, like life points, is also a death penalty?"

The game abruptly ended, clearly not the final ending.

So, is it a bad ending?

Lu Ma sighed and leaned back in his chair.

As if to confirm Lu Ma's conjecture, the game interface flashed and displayed the story after Yu Xiaogang was killed in text form.

[Yu Xiaogang spoke rudely to you, and in a fit of rage, you killed him.]

[Your long history of killing has corrupted your mind. Your mental strength has not helped you resist this corruption; you have gone mad.]

[You figured, since we've already killed him, why not kill Tang San too? Tang San isn't wearing a resurrection item right now, so you killed him again, completely annihilating him.]

Flander and the others finally discovered the anomaly on the playground, stopped you, and contacted Ning Fengzhi to bring you back.

Ning Fengzhi arrived and looked at you, quite disappointed. But you are, after all, his daughter. Upon returning to the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile School, he didn't want to punish you; he simply locked you up.

A week has passed.

[Tang Hao tracked down you to the murderer of his son, contacted the Clear Sky Sect, launched an attack on the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile School, and successfully killed you.]

【you are dead. 】

……

[Click to continue]

Lu Ma clicked the mouse and quickly returned to the main interface, where he discovered a brand new feature—the ending system.

The ending system is located below the exit game button on the main screen. From the introduction, Lu Ma knows that this ending system will record all the endings that have been triggered, while the endings that have not been triggered will be replaced with question mark images.

Judging from the number of question mark images, this game has many endings, at least 33.

The reason I say "at least" is because this ending system only displays 16 endings in a 4x4 format per page. However, he has unlocked too few endings to have permission to view the third page, so he doesn't know the answers to questions like how many endings are on the third page or if there is a fourth page.

However, in the two pages that have been opened, in addition to the Q1 ending where you kill the master, Rikuma also discovered another ending that has been unlocked.

[Ending W]

The cover features a human-faced spider, presumably unlocked during the hunt for this spider. However, the save file was loaded too quickly, causing a bug in the game that prevented the ending system from appearing at that time.

However, this minor bug is not a problem for Lu Ma.

Lu Ma clicked on this ending, and after reading the text description, he also had a feeling that was hard to put into words.

[You failed to suppress the Man-Faced Spider, and your health is now depleted.]

【you are dead. 】

Chapter 66: Load save file and continue the game.

Main interface.

Lu Ma stared blankly at the familiar buttons.

He achieved a bad ending in the game.

Of course, he wasn't stunned because of that; he was stunned because of a message hidden in the ending.

"Tang Hao will come to kill me in a week."

In this ending, Ning Rongrong kills Tang San again, and Tang Hao most likely came for this reason. If he had a save file and wouldn't kill Grandmaster or Tang San as he did this time, then Tang Hao might not necessarily come to kill Ning Rongrong.

However, Tang Hao's presence was still too much of a hindrance. There was no guarantee that if Tang Hao knew he had killed Tang San, he wouldn't still come after him.

Moreover, judging from the ending, even if he returns to the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile School, he may not be safe... If Gu Rong and Chen Xin are restrained by others, he currently has no way to win against Tang Hao alone.

"During this save/load, we still need to be careful about Tang Hao's presence. But no rush, let's think about how to deal with the master first."

Looking at the save screen, Lu Ma was filled with thoughts as he stared at the save file he had saved in advance "for fear of killing the master and ruining the save." In the end, he loaded the save file anyway.

[Game loading...]

[Character status loading...]

[Related plot loading...]

[Related story characters loading...]

[Shader compilation in progress...]

[Game ready! Welcome, □□□□]

"What is this?"

Lu Ma frowned as he looked at the loading prompt, which seemed to have never appeared before.

This seems to have only happened after I activated the ending system. Is it a change brought about by the ending system, or something else?

Everything else was fine, but what really bothered him was the last sentence. That sentence…

It's as if he's some incredibly powerful person.