Chapter 298 - 63: Kingdom’s Abnormal Change

Meanwhile, Duan Fei’s party found their exploration halted on the eighth floor.

The eighth floor was yet another test of strength.

Here, every player would appear on a small, flat-topped mountain, facing a doppelganger of themselves.

Even those who entered as a team were separated onto different mountaintops, forced to face their doppelgangers alone.

The doppelganger possessed formidable Attributes and the player’s own Profession. Only by having sufficiently high Attributes and an extremely deep understanding of one’s Profession could a player hope to defeat it.

But victory wasn’t the end of it. Players then had to carefully climb down from the peak to a cave below, which was the only way to proceed to the ninth floor and reach the next supply point.

Currently, all the players were stuck on the eighth floor, and the general consensus from various strategy guides was that one needed to accumulate enough Reincarnation Points to get past it.

And among all the frustrated players, Duan Fei was one of the most vexed.

His Profession was Summoner, which meant his doppelganger was also a Summoner.

Every time they faced off, his double would use a single move: it would raise its hand and summon.

The problem was, whether due to a system glitch or not, it seemed to only summon one specific creature: the Demon King’s pet, the Hellhound.

That thing was simply not a creature an ordinary player could fight. Duan Fei was killed in a single bite every time. Now, the mere thought of it was giving him trauma.

Eight Desolates and the others were also stuck. Their only option was to repeatedly teleport back to the sixth floor to grind for Reincarnation Points and Attributes, hoping to eventually accumulate enough to brute-force their way through this floor.

However, just as the group of Slimes was grinding for Reincarnation Points to the point of nausea, something unexpected finally occurred.

The local Lord dispatched men to guard the Dungeon entrance. Elite guards surrounded the area, preventing any Slimes from getting in or out.

Members of the Clergy also stood watch, gravely observing every corner to prevent any Slimes from getting through.

’Being sick of grinding for Attributes is one thing,’ the players thought, ’but not letting us in is another matter entirely.’

Realizing they could no longer grind for Attributes, the players immediately began to protest, only to be met with merciless suppression from the guards.

Beside the Dungeon entrance, slime fluid flowed freely and bodies littered the ground. A massive number of Slimes had been slaughtered. The gap in Attributes between them and the guards meant the Slimes suffered disastrous casualties.

Although the Slimes could revive indefinitely, the guards seemed to know no fatigue. They stood outside the entrance, hacking away for hours without so much as blinking.

Even when Duan Fei presented a letter of recommendation from the tenth-floor Witch, the guards remained unmoved and still refused entry.

After another failed attempt, Eight Desolates glared at his attribute panel and said resentfully, "Dammit! If I were still in my human form, I’d make them regret this."

"Don’t mess around. We need to figure something out," Duan Fei said wearily.

They had already unsealed all the items in their inventories and all the Skills on their characters, and had poured all their spare attribute points into raising their Attributes.

However, the higher their Attributes went, the more Reincarnation Points were required. Now, most players couldn’t even earn a single point after an hour of grinding, but there was no other way to get them.

What was worse, their only method had now been completely cut off.

Some players complained to the administrators. "It’s not right for you to pull this crap so early in the game! I’m telling you, don’t be foolish. Back off and let us grind our Attributes!"

Seeing the flood of messages, Jade Rabbit grew anxious.

The root of the corruption within Gale was in this very instance, which was why the management team had designated it as a massive-scale instance and sent all the players in together.

The management team could only set the instance’s parameters; they couldn’t directly interfere with the events inside. This left Jade Rabbit to watch anxiously, unable to do much of anything.

A corruption outbreak was fatal for any administrator. The five percent survival rate meant that living through one was a near-impossibility. Often, organizing these containment efforts was a matter of doing one’s best and leaving the rest to fate.

Now, just as they were nearing the crucial stage, the natives had started making trouble.

Clutching the messages, Jade Rabbit rushed to her supervisor, Bian, and asked anxiously, "Mr. Bian, can’t we do something? Like making these natives leave?"

Bian looked at Jade Rabbit coldly. "Your internship evaluation must be quite poor, and I’m sure Gale has something to do with that."

Glaring at Bian, Jade Rabbit swallowed her anger and humbled her tone. "Yes. But may I know why?"

"The corruption within an administrator is undetectable during its incubation period. Once it erupts, it’s a catastrophe. So, when an outbreak happens, we have to isolate the individual—you can think of it as encasing them in a membrane—and project the corruption from their body outward, shaping it into an instance. Anyone who knows the true nature of this corruption will become infected themselves. Only the players, who are ignorant of its true form, are immune. That is why we have them help us resolve it."

He paused, letting Jade Rabbit process the information before continuing. "If we were to send an administrator inside, what do you think would happen? They would be corrupted almost instantly. An administrator sent in to save someone would just be another person sent to their death. What would be the point?"

"But..."

"I know you’re worried about your superior, but don’t let that concern harm you as well. Go and do your job, Jade Rabbit. Our duty is to prevent this world from suffering greater trauma, nothing else."

"Yes, sir..."

Watching Jade Rabbit leave, Bian heaved a long sigh, then took off his Glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose.

As a supervisor-level administrator, he’d seen his share of life-and-death partings, but they still made him melancholic every time.

Especially with Gale, the strongest fighter under his command. His loss would be a massive blow, and with his position temporarily vacant and unable to be filled, they might have to select a replacement from among the players.

"Sigh... Gale..."

A long sigh echoed through the room, followed by the sound of Bian slamming his fist on the desk.