Chapter 309 - 74: The Key’s Whereabouts

"They’re dead?"

"Shadow God, you’re supposed to be a star player. Could you stop asking such stupid questions?"

"Cousin, if you keep this up, I’m going to leak your home address."

"Tch."

Scratching his head, Qian Wulu explained resignedly, "I didn’t kill them. You know I have the Divine Balance. It lets me see the value of everyone, alive or dead. These guys are worth more alive, so I let them live."

The Celestial Wing Knight Order blocking the path was dispatched by Qian Wulu in a single move. The stark contrast of the scene left the spectating players holding their breath. After a long moment, they gasped in amazement, "That’s incredible."

"Could it be that the uglier you are, the stronger you get?"

"No wonder I’ve never accomplished anything."

"But how did Qian Wulu even attack just now? Why couldn’t I see it?"

"I didn’t see it either. I heard someone tried to PK Qian Wulu once, but they didn’t even know how they lost. It was like they were dead on the ground before he even moved."

"That’s unbelievable."

Qian Wulu had no intention of explaining himself to the bewildered players.

As far as he was concerned, other players were just accessories to his gameplay. Explaining things to this crowd was pointless.

Leaving the other players to occupy the area, Qian Wulu brandished his Broken Sword and pressed forward. No one he encountered could stand against him for even a single exchange.

He charged all the way to the fifteenth floor. Surveying his surroundings, he turned to Shadow God, who had come with him. "Alright, this is as far as I can go today."

"Why?" Shadow God asked, confused.

"Something feels off. It’ll be risky to push further. But there’s no problem looking around here. If we can find the key, we can get to the next floor."

"What’s the key?"

"Everything in this world can be seen as a lock or a key. I can see the locks, and I can see the keys. As long as I find the key, everything will be fine."

"Cousin, you’re gonna get punched talking in riddles like that."

"Is it my fault you don’t understand? Besides, how come you haven’t been beaten up for writing all that incomprehensible stuff in your diary? Something about ’the right hand possessed by an Evil Dragon,’ or ’the reincarnation of the Dark Evil God,’ and so on."

"You read my diary!"

"Is it my fault you post that stuff on your social media feed in the middle of the night when you’ve got nothing better to do? And did you not notice your mom even liked it?"

"Huh? No wonder she confiscated my phone and has been giving me weird smiles for the past two days. Is she even my real mom?"

"One hundred percent mom content. Definitely your real mom."

The fifteenth floor was a vast ice plain.

This floor was the deepest region known to humanity. The only ones who knew how to clear it were the Celestial Wing Knight Order, but they had no intention of cooperating with the players.

After years of exploring this region, the Celestial Wing Knight Order had integrated with the local ecosystem, becoming a part of it.

The ice plain had no concept of night. A sun-like star perpetually swayed between the horizon and a position fifteen degrees above it, plunging the area into a state of constant daylight.

However, perpetual sunlight didn’t mean the place was warm.

Snow was everywhere. Human Adventurers who had reached this place before had left behind black markers, adding specks of a different color to the white landscape and thus reducing the chances of snow blindness.

Beyond that, there were even indigenous people here. Some of them survived by hunting the unique local polar bears and seals, eating the beasts’ livers raw to obtain hard-won nutrients.

When the Celestial Wing Knight Order first arrived, they refused to eat the raw livers of the local animals. But after large numbers of their members died from scurvy, they too adopted this custom and began to eat raw liver and fish skin.

They didn’t know this was because liver and whale skin were rich in Vitamin C. They could only explain it as a Curse from the Demon King, meant to force them all to revert to a bestial state, living like savages on the ice plain.

Two white Slimes moving in parallel left two rows of small dots on the snow. Before long, the wind and snow would erase them, leaving behind a pristine, white surface.

After walking for some time, Qian Wulu suddenly stopped, gazing thoughtfully into the distance.

"Cousin, what’s wrong?" Shadow God asked.

"It’s nothing. I sense the key is just ahead. If we keep heading toward that mountain peak, we’ll get there in a few hours."

"Then why’d you stop? Let’s keep going."

"Don’t you think it’s boring to just walk nonstop?"

"A little. How about you die for a bit to cheer me up?"

Qian Wulu looked at Shadow God and nodded. "Thanks. What you just said has erased my last shred of guilt. Alright, I’m logging off to watch a few movies, order some barbecue, and take a break. You can carry my body to the foot of the mountain. Thanks."

Before Shadow God had a chance to refuse, Qian Wulu logged right off, leaving him utterly dumbfounded.

Seeing Qian Wulu’s now-motionless body, Shadow God silently cursed his cousin’s shamelessness, but he had no choice but to hoist him onto his back and start toward the mountain.

At the foot of the mountain was a village of local natives.

These natives had come to resemble Demons in some ways. Aside from their lack of hostility toward people, they were essentially an organized group of Demons.

The climate on the ice plain had made them exceptionally tall. They had tamed sled dogs, which now served as their companions.

Their strength was only equivalent to that of an ordinary person in this world, which made Shadow God wonder how they managed to survive.

When they saw Shadow God hopping over, their first Reaction was to wonder if this thing was edible. But when they saw him cut down a polar bear right in front of them, they abandoned that thought.

After all, they might be a little dumb, but they weren’t crazy.

A being that could kill a creature weighing several hundred kilograms with a single sword strike was not someone they could afford to provoke.

And when they realized Shadow God had no intention of attacking them, they even invited him to live with them. They also used subtle gestures to indicate that they hoped he could help them produce a few children.

"Don’t you guys know what reproductive isolation is? High school biology! My homework for tonight! Oh right, I don’t think I finished my homework yet."

Shadow God readily distributed the bear meat to the natives as payment for his lodging. He then asked them for a table and began to work on his homework, planning to submit it when he was done.

For some reason, the education policy had recently changed, requiring all students to submit their homework through the game.

This policy was enforced with surprising intensity. The previous narrative of games being a scourge vanished overnight. Every news platform was flooded with headlines like "Education Reform Shows Initial Success, Fun and Learning Go Hand in Hand."

While being able to do homework in the game was nice—after all, some Skills could even help with it—Shadow God couldn’t help but feel it was a departure from tradition.

He had only written a few pages when he heard a commotion.

Peeking out of the igloo, he saw a squad from the Celestial Wing Knight Order arrive. They were raising their blades to slaughter the local natives.