The Era of Gods

Once most of the surrounding undead had been killed, he made up his mind and controlled the remaining ninety-eight riflemen to head towards the south, where the ruins were sparser and the undead presence was especially strong.

According to the usual game routine, a spawn point like this would generally contain a small BOSS of some sort, and based on the rules within the ruins, he guessed that not only were there BOSSes in the city, there might also be a monster den, though it was uncertain whether it would be skeletons or zombies.

Such a monster den could continuously spawn new monsters, and if destroyed, it might reveal something akin to a military barracks’ Nest Heart, which could be placed in the creature nest slot within the Summoning Core, allowing an endless stream of skeleton soldiers to be summoned for heroes to recruit.

Finding undead nests and BOSSes was simple—the heavier the deathly aura, the more likely it was to be the place.

The ancient city ruins were teeming with undead, and every few steps would alert them, making the journey practically a constant fight.

Thankfully, he had a high strategic attribute, and after the buff, these riflemen’s offensive abilities had reached Level 2 soldier standards, making fighting skeletons and slow-moving zombies nearly a blowout victory. They pushed forward with ease, continually accumulating points.

Though the points were scanty, amounting to a mere o.i or 0.2 each, they added up over time.

It is worth mentioning that upon Lin Xiao’s incarnation entering the Ruins of Myriad, his native data was digitalized, converting his incarnate’s carried Divine Power and the Divinity possessed by his true body into a hero template with his strength converted to Sixth Level transcendent, and Divine Power converted into 100 points of Hero Mana.

Mana was of no use now, but once he reached First Level hero, he could have the opportunity to learn hero-exclusive Strategic Spells for casting.

Normally, mana doesn’t recover over time, meaning it wouldn’t be replenished the next day, but if there’s strategic attribute Intelligence, mana equivalent to the level of Intelligence could be recovered each day, meaning ten points of Intelligence would recover ten points of mana per day.

So, it seemed Hero Mana should not be wasted thoughtlessly, but rather conserved.

From this, one could see that in the Ruins of Myriad, players’ strengths were greatly weakened, and inside, there seemed to be a greater emphasis on strategic attributes and soldiers’ roles, with individual strength being highly limited.

This… well, it should be a good thing for all players whose Projection Descending.

But for those whose True-Body Descended, it was not so friendly. Although their True Bodies remained powerful, the conversion of Divine Power to mana significantly cut their strength. For them, Divine Territory Players without Divine Power were like warriors going into battle unarmed; even with great strength, their lethality had plummeted by who knows how many times.

No wonder so many of the True Body Descendants from previous years died miserably; it would be strange if such a drastic reduction didn’t lead to a tragic end.

Even for Wu Zhonglin, whose True Body Descended, that cut would have been tough to handle.

This made Lin Xiao hesitate; should he summon his own Clan?

Heroic soldiers could be summoned with Soldier Cards or from various creature nests. With these two sources, was it really necessary to summon the true bodies of the God Realm Kin?

He had initially thought of summoning his own Clan, sweeping through with the help of the Small Fishmen and Wise Goblin Mages, as well as the powerful Naga warriors.

But now he felt that might not be so easy; or rather, if he did so, the potential losses could be more than he could bear.

After all, once the summoned Clan members died in battle, they were truly dead.

The thought of his Clan genuinely dying in battle, sacrificing their lives to fight against these Alchemy Puppets or other monsters, didn’t seem worth it.

Too great a loss!

Lin Xiao found it hard to decide but was fortunate to have two Soldier Cards at the start. Two hundred riflemen were enough for now; he’d use them for a while and see how things went from there.

Yes, summoning the Clan required a First Level Summoning Core.

Thanks to the riflemen being Alchemical creations, without the strong life presence of living people, they were not highly sensitive to the undead. The dead would typically only actively attack if one came within forty to fifty meters. However, creating loud noises could draw their attention from a greater distance, though usually not exceeding one hundred meters.

Besides earning between 0.1 to 0.2 points, killing these undead brought no additional gains—no dropping of Gold Coins or equipment as one might expect.

But it couldn’t be ruled out; since the rules of the Ruins of Myriad were so game-like, and BOSSes supposedly existed, it was possible there were drops, just that the undead encountered so far were too weak to yield anything.

The ruins were indeed swarming with undead; he must have killed hundreds on his way, and still, more undead kept being attracted. As the journey continued, the number increased, though the strength didn’t change much. It was surmised that this area, being akin to a starting village, would not have very powerful undead placed around.

After fighting through a large open space, likely over a thousand meters long, if the city wasn’t large, he might have crossed it. Contrary to his expectations, he did not encounter the anticipated masses of undead or a BOSS’ den; rather, he had fought all the way to an abandoned city wall, about to leave the city.

“emmm…”

Lin Xiao hesitated, cleared the surrounding undead, and led his troops to turn back into the city.

So be it, if there was none. It was better to amass ten thousand points early, upgrade the Summoning Core to Level 1, and unlock a higher population limit.

To minimize the riflemen’s casualties, he personally joined the fray when facing large groups of undead. Whether skeletons or zombies, each was dispatched with a single punch, crushing them with ease—it was incredibly satisfying.

But even so, there were continuous losses, and every few deaths he summoned a replacement from the second Riflemen Card by spending ten gold coins, maintaining a troop number of one hundred.

In addition to that, after killing enough enemies, these riflemen could upgrade by spending five gold coins to advance from newly summoned recruits to veterans, increasing all attributes except intelligence by 0.5. Not only was this a considerable boost, but it also made them more agile and quicker to respond, even their weapons got somewhat sharper.

However, the base level of the riflemen was too poor, and they died too easily. Even after upgrading to veterans, they could still perish any minute on the complex battlefield, making them difficult to grow.

Two and a half hours later, Lin Xiao didn’t know how many undead he had killed, only that he had accumulated more than four hundred points. Of the two hundred riflemen from the two Riflemen Cards, only eighty-six remained, most of whom had been upgraded to veterans, but not a single one had lived long enough to earn enough experience to upgrade further to Elite Riflemen, also known as seasoned soldiers.

Killing so many undead, he finally reaped his first spoils of war, a fragment of a Skeleton Card.

A complete Skeleton Card, like the Riflemen Card, can summon one hundred skeletons and can be made whole from four fragments.

The drop rate was touching!

But he still needed to continue farming; his troop reserves were running thin.

As his subordinates dwindled, he took matters into his own hands, lifting a broken stone pillar and sweeping with it. A single sweep would clear a large area, highly efficient, but it drained his strength quite a bit.

As he swept through the ruins like a one-man army and dusk approached, he didn’t know how many undead he had slain. He accumulated points that were close to one thousand, falling short by about fifty, but the ruins’ undead were nearly all cleared, with seemingly not enough left to reach the thousand-point mark.

Fortunately, his luck held up, and he burst out a Sixth Level Skeleton Card fragment all at once, adding up to a total of seven fragments along with the previous one.

He used four fragments to make a complete Skeleton Card, summoning over fifty skeletons to fill the one hundred troop limit.

But somewhat frustratingly, after summoning the skeletons, his riflemen developed a Negative BUFF, “Deathly Aura,” which reduced all attributes by 10%. This negative status grew stronger as the number of troops increased and the proportion of undead became larger.

By nightfall, the undead typically gain a boost in their combat power; however, there weren’t many of them left in the ruins. After another round of clearing the stragglers, Lin Xiao and his subordinates found a spot against the city wall in the ruins to build a temporary encampment, preparing to set out after sunrise.

Being new to the area, it was best to play it safe.

The night grew darker, soon turning pitch black.

Most riflemen lay down to sleep, but the undead did not need rest and formed a large circle around the temporary encampment to keep watch.

As for Lin Xiao, although he could go without sleep for several days, he had nothing else to do, so he leaned against a broken wall and closed his eyes.

He didn’t know how long had passed when he suddenly felt the temperature drop sharply in his drowsiness. He looked up to see fog forming in front of him.

No, it wasn’t fog but thick grey death energy rising from the ground beneath the ruins. He quickly stood up and jumped onto the broken wall to see dense death energy spewing out of the ruin’s crevices, turning into a heavy fog.

This anomaly quickly put him on high alert. With a few kicks, he woke up the riflemen and gathered all his troops ready for what may come.

Minutes later, as the density of the death fog reached a certain level, he saw vague human-shaped silhouettes appearing within the fog. Cold wills were slowly taking shape, and at the same time, in the center of the fog-shrouded city ruins, he sensed a powerful will gradually awakening.

“Damn, ghosts!”

Without waiting for these wills to fully form, he rapidly ordered his troops to rally and head in one direction.

But this movement instantly grabbed the attention of the cold wills. The fog churned, and the silhouettes accelerated in form, turning into transparent ghosts rushing towards them.

Before the ghosts even arrived, a chilling breath rushed forward.

Lin Xiao snorted coldly and punched, blasting an approaching ghost into a cold mist that dissipated.

But beside him, two riflemen thrust their bayonets, their spear tips passing directly through a ghost. The white apparition made its way unimpeded onto the riflemen, who instantly lost their lives and fell without a sound.

“Clatter!”

He quickly turned his head to see a dozen skeletons being swept by a group of ghosts; their bodies violently shook and crumbled into heaps of bones.

“Damnit!”

Lin Xiao with a quick thought commanded all his troops to attack in all directions to attract the ghosts’ notice, then he himself took off towards the outskirts of the city without looking back.

At a time like this, his followers were definitely unsalvageable. They were perfect to buy him some time for his escape.

Luckily, his transformed Hero’s body reached the Sixth Level Transcendent status, and his hero template was highly resistant to various abnormalities. Plus, the encampment spot he chose was very close to the city outskirts. He surged forward with his head down, crushing his way out and summoning all the remaining skeletons from the Skeleton Card as cannon fodder, allowing him to burst out of the encirclement.