Chapter 434: Chapter 420 Fureya Thinks You Are Weak (5000 words mega chapter)

Cola Fanatic, Nuclear Jumper, and the Titan Team’s professional players all collectively logged into Holy Spirit City.

Before logging in, everyone made a pact to stick together, and whoever drew their weapon first would be a dog.

In other words, this time they went online just to take in the sights of Holy Spirit City, and any team’s coach had the authority to kick a player offline if they entered combat.

When the group of players arrived at the newly opened ‘Arena’ area of Holy Spirit City, the first one to almost lose control was Juan Canyun.

The Arena area was the place in Holy Spirit City that attracted the most spectators; ever since the Holy Spirit Challenge went live, twelve stages had been set up there for the NPCs who participated in the challenge to use and warm up.

It just so happened that Juan Canyun saw the figure of the Calamity Lady on one of the stages… The one exchanging blows with the Calamity Lady wasn’t a player but the Eternal Hilze’er, renowned among the players as the Thorne difficulty of the Holy Spirit Challenge.

Hilze’er wasn’t unfamiliar to the players Cola Fanatic and Nuclear Jumper who had just logged on. As a newly updated Eternal, he and Rosh had been labeled by the forum veterans as… the masterminds behind the Holy Spirit Challenge!

What “masterminds” meant was that the Holy Spirit City officials had let Rosh and Hilze’er take part in the Holy Spirit Challenge, making it clear they didn’t want a player to secure first place.

On the stage, the Calamity Lady and Hilze’er were battling to a seemingly even 50/50.

Hilze’er was wielding a Longsword that could unleash deep red flames, while the Calamity Lady used the combination often seen with pirates: a cutlass and a firegun. However, as the battle went on, the Calamity Lady’s health began to gradually fall behind, and her body started to accumulate a number of ghastly wounds.

This made Juan Canyun, who was watching below, itch to step up to the stage where the Calamity Lady was, yet Mo Shigui was one step ahead, extending a hand to press on Juan Canyun’s shoulder.

“Xiao Wen, don’t forget the agreement we made before we came, and… that might not be the Calamity Lady from our guild,” Mo Shigui reminded Juan Canyun.

Tomorrow was the final of the World Fray Tournament, and as a coach, Mo Shigui clearly understood the impact playing Holy Spirit City could have on their state in the Fray game. If it had been a much weaker team than Nuclear Jumper, it wouldn’t have been a big deal.

But Cola Fanatic was definitely a strong team, on par with Nuclear Jumper, and, often, state could very well determine the outcome of a match.

“But coach, she is…” Juan Canyun, of course, knew what Mo Shigui was getting at.

It was common for NPCs in a game to have multiple copies, but the problem was that the only Calamity Lady in Juan Canyun’s contract NPC list displayed ‘Out and About’.

“Our guild’s Calamity Lady was dragged into the Holy Spirit Challenge by the damn designers? Why? Why not just use a new Calamity Lady?”

A player next to Juan Canyun felt puzzled, hearing this made him sense something was off but couldn’t pinpoint it.

Because in the hearts of the players, the Calamity Lady was just an NPC, and NPCs should have many copies, just like Fureya.

The appearance of NPC characters in this Holy Spirit Challenge was a novel concept, so players thought that the Calamity Lady in the challenge should be a ‘new’ one!

“I don’t know either,” Juan Canyun said, looking at the Calamity Lady on the stage, full of cuts and bruises. He couldn’t guess why their Calamity Lady would be standing there.

And just like she was intentionally ignoring Juan Canyun, the Calamity Lady concentrated her attention on the battle in front of her.

“There are twenty-four NPCs who participated in the Holy Spirit Challenge this time. Huh, they just updated it with another one,” said a Cola Fanatic player, looking at the official website’s Holy Spirit Challenge page.

The official page had publicized all the participating NPCs, not only revealing them but also identifying the difficulty levels of these NPCs.

The two Eternals, sister and brother Rosh and Hilze’er, topped the list with hellish difficulty, followed by one at hard difficulty and twenty-one at normal difficulty.

Perhaps it was these two hellish difficulty identifications that provoked the forum veterans to rant about a rigged game, but while this player was checking, the website updated with a completely new character.

“Who is it?” Caramel immediately asked.

His attention might have been on the Eternal Hilze’er on the stage, but Caramel was equally interested in… which NPCs were participating in this challenge.

“It’s…the incarnation of the Fureyas, hard difficulty,” the player said.

“What did you say?” Caramel paused for a moment when he heard the character’s name, turning his head in disbelief to look at the screen displayed in front of his teammate.

Indeed, the screen did indicate a newly updated challenge character ‘The Incarnation of the Fureyas’.

Underneath the challenge character card, there was a notice, “This character is currently taking on challengers on stage twelve, Challenger: Eternal Rosh.”

Caramel wasn’t particularly interested in the character itself; he glanced at Mo Shigui from Nuclear Jumper, who appeared calm, though his twitching eyelids told a different story.

It really made one want to remind him, “Coach Song! There’s a match tomorrow!”

……

Rosh was munching on a burger given to her by the inhabitants of Holy Spirit City, truly a bunch of peculiar creatures.

She looked at the group of Holy Spirits surrounding her and felt as if she had become the leader, or perhaps the big sister, of this group of Holy Spirits.

“Big Sister Rosh, your health is fully restored. Would you like to eat something else?”

“Your performance today is as dominant as ever!”

It was not an illusion; she really had become the leader, or perhaps… an idol? of a small group of Holy Spirits.

In the last nearly fifteen days, Rosh had been fighting in the arenas of Holy Spirit City, during which she had slaughtered over a hundred Holy Spirits…

If it were any other race, they would have sworn deadly vengeance against Rosh long ago, but among these Holy Spirits, many had been killed by her three or four times. However, instead of feeling anger after being killed by her, they even joined her fan club.

Her popularity was also rising in Holy Spirit City, and there were vague signs of something like a Rosh Gang being established.

Incomprehensible, but very useful.

Rosh also learned how to be a qualified NPC and a highly popular NPC in Holy Spirit City. She would issue tasks to these Holy Spirits with Divine Power Crystals as a reward.

With the assistance of these Holy Spirits, Rosh had gathered a lot of information about Thorne. Unfortunately, she was just one step away from the final breakthrough… and that was to win the championship of this match.

But if she continued to build up her popularity and gain more and more supporters among the Holy Spirits, maybe… she wouldn’t need to win the championship to find that guy Thorne?

When this strange thought surfaced in Rosh’s mind, she finally matched with a new opponent.

“Thank you for your help, it’s time for me to enter the arena,” Rosh said as she took out a silver coin common among the Holy Spirits and gave it to the Holy Spirit who had bought the hamburger for her before heading straight to the arena.

On the other side of the arena stood a figure that Rosh found somewhat familiar, Fureya.

Rosh occasionally heard the Holy Spirits mention this character. According to the information she had gathered, Fureya seemed to be a common name for many Holy Spirits’ spouses?

“I didn’t expect you to participate in this match,” Rosh said mercilessly. The Fureya standing before her was dressed only in a gray and white nun’s robe and had no weapon in hand, looking like a kitten ready to be slaughtered.

“You know me? I didn’t expect to meet you in the first match either; it makes me a bit scared,” Fureya said as she looked at Rosh, who was prepared for battle.

“If you’re scared, you can forfeit.”

The one thing Rosh hated the most was bullying the weak. She swore she would never point a gun at an innocent weakling in her life, and Fureya was certainly one of those.

But before Fureya could speak up and forfeit, the Holy Spirits below became restless.

“It’s really Fureya! Not a player with the ID of Fureya!”

“Damn! Who is so heartless to send their own Fureya to the competition?”

“Big Sister Rosh! No, please… please spare her…”

“Even though it’s not my Fureya, isn’t this a bit too cruel?”

Once the Holy Spirits below confirmed that the figure on the stage was indeed Fureya, they collectively went into a riotous frenzy, which included pleas for Rosh not to lay hands on their Fureya, and threats that if Rosh dared to attack Fureya, she would face dire consequences.

Rosh glanced at the overly excited Holy Spirits below and closed her eyes.

The mark on the back of Rosh’s left hand emitted a soft blue light. When Rosh reopened her eyes, she saw the numbers floating above Fureya’s head.

9999+

This number was not indicative of combat power, but rather… the ranking in the ladder match arena.

The ranking in the Holy Spirits’ ladder match arena.

Indeed… Rosh had been ruthlessly slaying players in the arena not just as a warm-up but to climb the Holy Spirit City’s power ranking.

After signing a contract with Jiang Qiao, she had entered the players’ ladder match arena as an NPC.

When the Holy Spirit Challenge officially began, these twenty-five NPCs were assigned to different groups based on their scores in the ladder arena rankings.

If one wanted to win the Holy Spirit Challenge in the simplest and most straightforward way, it was crucial to obtain the highest possible ranking before the start.

Rosh’s current ladder ranking was seventeenth, while Fureya’s ranking was beyond ten thousand.

After continuous fighting in the ladder match arena for fifteen days, Rosh understood the concept of ‘eating points,’ which meant the closer the ranking of the player she defeated, the more ladder points she would gain, and the faster her ranking would increase.

For a contestant like Fureya, ranked beyond ten thousand, Rosh might not gain many points for defeating her but could lose more points if defeated.

But the problem was… she couldn’t kill Fureya.

Rosh vaguely felt that if she did something excessive to this puppet before her, the connections she had built up in Holy Spirit City might be destroyed in an instant.

“I forfeit.”

In the end, Rosh uttered these three words in front of a host of restless spirits.

A collective sigh of relief from a bunch of spirits followed Rosh’s decision to forfeit. Even if Fureya behind her shouted “Wait a minute,” Rosh didn’t look back as she descended from the arena.

However, Fureya remained standing in the arena, awaiting other spirits’ challenge in her capacity as the arena’s master.

But for a short while, there were no spirits taking the stage.

“Hurry up! Someone’s Fureya is lost, come and take her back!”

“Could it be a system bug?”

“Bug, my ass. The incarnations of Fureyas are listed as ‘hardcore’ on the official website. How about that guy tries his luck?”

“Are you even a man if you fight Fureya? Get lost!”

But there are always meddlers among players… Fureya, standing quietly on the platform, eventually welcomed a new challenger.

This challenger was a judo player with a burly figure, ID named Fenglin Meihuo, belonging to an obscure guild called ‘We Will Always Like Fureya’.

The character, a man with a full face of stubble, made his stance clear as soon as he climbed onto the arena with his guild name.

“Are you that player’s Fureya? Do you remember what your Holy Spirit is called? Maybe we can take you back?” Fenglin Meihuo said, yet as soon as he climbed onto the stage, he applied a violent grappling combat status to himself.

He, like the rest of the players below… all hoped that there was some kind of bug with the system, which brought this Fureya onto the stage.

This was because with the frenzy for cola, many players used Fureya’s guiding stones to bring their Fureyas to watch the competition in the arena.

Perhaps… this Fureya had just got lost in the crowd?

Regardless, nearly ninety-nine percent of players who leveled their Holy Spirits to max level were Fureya fans. Even if it was someone else’s Fureya… as long as it had that face, they simply couldn’t bring themselves to harm her.

“I know… Holy Spirit.” Suddenly, a bone-chilling cold emanated from the arena.

“Holy shit! Whoever has a hot drink, give me one! I’m getting hypothermia!”

“Me too… what’s happening?”

The players surrounding the arena, affected by the chill, immediately found themselves in a constant state of losing health, and Fenglin Meihuo on the arena was losing fifty points of health every second.

“You all find it hard to accept, I would appear here as your enemy.”

Fureya slowly walked towards Fenglin Meihuo on the other side of the arena. Halfway there, a frost scythe called Frost Heaven appeared in Fureya’s hand.

Fureya reached out and ran her hand across the scythe’s blade…

What the hell?

Fenglin Meihuo, staring at the approaching Fureya, was somewhat… stunned, but instinctively still pressed the button to take a screenshot.

But just as the screenshot operation ended, Fureya suddenly swung the massive scythe in her hand, and his vision was completely obscured by a lot of white frost… the white frost blocked his view, and Fureya’s figure also disappeared into the frost.

When Fenglin Meihuo tried to counter with a skill, he found that he was hit by a throw move, a fatal throw move.

He fell to his knees on the ground, and in that instant, the fog that obscured the vision on the arena floor disappeared. The watching spirits below saw clearly the scene that was frozen in place.

Fenglin Meihuo, for some reason, was on his knees, while Fureya stood behind him, the huge scythe against Fenglin Meihuo’s neck.

“Sleep well, Holy Spirit.”

Fureya’s voice, always gentle to the point of healing, rang out. However, it was followed by the sound of the scythe cleaving through flesh and bone.

The frost-crafted scythe cut from bottom to top through Fenglin Meihuo’s neck, severing his head clean off. Blood spurted from the neck until the frost solidified it. Fenglin Meihuo’s head tumbled to the other side of the arena.

Yet his vision persisted, so he saw his headless body topple in front of Fureya. Then, he too became a seal tombstone.

Decapitation! A one-hit kill!

The crowd of players below entered a collective state of stupor…

“I will never dare to tease my dear Fureya again.”

“What’s the deal with this Fureya?”

“…”

From under the stage, Mo Shigui watched Fureya, who stood above on the platform. Even though there were many, many Fureyas, and this Fureya’s outfit seemed quite different, Mo Shigui always felt there was some connection with his own Fureya.

But Mo Shigui could guess the original intention behind this character’s design: it was the devious plan of the game designers to increase the popularity of the Fureyas… Judging by the players’ reactions, it was undoubtedly a success.

If there were a popularity poll for NPCs, as long as the records of the fights on the stage were released, this incarnation of the Fureyas would definitely rank in the top three.

Yet, more than popularity, Mo Shigui was concerned about…

“Fleeting Star, are you at the Cola Craze stronghold?” Mo Shigui directly opened the friends list and sent a private message to Fleeting Star.

“Right here! The settings for the new Challenger character are simply… amazing. I kind of want to experience what it feels like to be beheaded by Fureya!”

“Experience that later. I want to know, does this character have any backstory? Or is she completely fictional?” Mo Shigui asked.

Most NPCs in Holy Spirit City had backstories and origins; it was rare to see purely fabricated NPCs. This incarnation of the Fureyas should have some sort of backstory as well.

“I’m still analyzing this, but Club President Mo, do you know what the reward for this Holy Spirit Challenge is?” Fleeting Star suddenly asked.

“Legendary Equipment and Special Equipment?” In Mo Shigui’s opinion, these were the most useful rewards, along with the exclusive title.

“No! It’s a wish. You get to make a wish to the Devouring God… I’ve been collecting materials from most of the competing NPCs for these fifteen days, and I found that they’re all here for this wish. After the Fureya incarnation’s match, I’ll see if I can ask her. Anyway, don’t worry President Mo, even if I risk getting chopped in half, I will dig out this character’s backstory,” Fleeting Star replied.

Wishes…

Mo Shigui watched Fureya on the stage welcoming the second Challenger, as well as Lady Disaster, who had been defeated by Eternal Hilze’er, on the other side.

If the players were to win, they would, of course, also receive this wish as a reward.

But from the perspective of Mo Shigui, a pure player, this wish would be nothing more than obtaining a specific piece of equipment, or a visit to the headquarters of Holy Spirit City, or maybe even an autograph from the producer of Holy Spirit City. That was about it.

The final phrase in the event description, “All interpretive rights for this event are reserved by the Holy Spirit City officials,” made it clear that the officials would definitely play some tricks regarding the wish.

After all, the officials would never agree to a wish like “I want to be a Holy Spirit City GM,” which could ruin the game.

So what about NPCs? What kind of wishes would they make? Mo Shigui could not even guess.

And at this moment, Mo Shigui happened to see a message in the Holy Spirit City drama group… This message was sent by Can Xin, who was smugly tagging all members.

‘Can Xin: OMG! NPC ladder points are about to top the chart! Club President Mo, your Caramel is going to get wrecked! @everyone’

Below this message, there was a ladder points ranking attached. The first place was still Cola Craze’s Caramel, but in second place was no longer a familiar name to the players. It was Eternal Hilze’er.

With a strong record of seventy-three consecutive wins, Hilze’er firmly held the second spot in the ladder points ranking, and he was just one victory away from taking the top rank in ladder points.

After seeing this message, Mo Shigui looked over at the professional team of Cola Craze.

Caramel had slowly drawn out his Moonlight Sword, but the other team members seemed to have gone mad, grabbing on to his legs and waist.

“Captain, calm down! We have the World Championship match tomorrow!”

“What about tomorrow! The match starts this afternoon! It’s already past midnight!”

“Right!”

Even NPCs were included in the Holy Spirit City ladder… and now they were a threat to the top spot. Mo Shigui, observing the NPCs dominating the top spots on the ladder, felt that the World Championship of Duneflict… might not even be on the same competitive level as… this unpopular online Holy Spirit Challenge hosted by Holy Spirit City.

The Holy Spirit Challenge wasn’t much followed, essentially just a contest within the small circle of Holy Spirit City, nowhere near as watched as the Duneflict World Championships, and also not hosted nearly as formally. It was entirely an official event rather than a professional competition.

But after the advent of the incarnation of the Fureyas, Holy Spirit City players, who originally didn’t pay much attention to this competition, as well as numerous cloud players, unexpectedly started discussing this topic.

How much longer can the game of Duneflict last? At this point, this question suddenly popped into Mo Shigui’s mind.