The Era of Gods

The Sixth Level troop had entered a transcendent state, equivalent to the powerful construct puppets like steel golems in the outside world, towering at four meters tall, their entire bodies made of crystals, and with the added weight from the magic array, a single punch could shatter stone to pieces.

It was also fortunate that the warship they had bought was reinforced with a magic array. If it had been an ordinary mortal wooden warship that suddenly took on so many overpowering golems, it would have probably been pressed down to the ocean floor or crushed completely.

The summoned puppets also received bonuses from strategic attributes and talents. The Sixth Level troops, with his constitution and strength at a high of fourteen points, and most terrifyingly, the nine-point *2 agility bonus, moved as fast as rabbits despite their cumbersome appearance. Combined, the two players only had the Dragon Fly outspeeding the crystal golems by a little, and none others could surpass them.

This was without him casting a slow spell to reduce their speed, which would have made the experience even more sour for them.

The outcome was needless to say—a sweep as decisive and effortless as uprooting dead wood, facing two opponents with one, without a trace of suspense.

He did not accept the surrender of the two players, eliminating them with neat efficiency.

It was now half a year later, the third season, where eliminating a player could earn thirty thousand experience points and one hundred points—this was not to be wasted.

After dispatching the two players, he ignored their remaining subordinates. He didn’t need more troops; what he lacked were gold coins and experience.

After cleaning up the battlefield, they approached the giant ship and discovered that it was a ghost ship.

So-called ghost ships, also known as nether ships or phantom ships, refer to vessels that mysteriously disappeared or sank into the sea many years ago, but were later found sailing on the sea, with no one aboard.

The giant battleship seemed well-preserved on the surface, but the material of the hull was as if it had rotted over an untold number of years, the entire structure a gray-black color, as if a light pinch could turn it to dust. A faint gray ripple covered the surface of the ship.

Lin Xiao kept his warship parallel to the silent ghost battleship, which was quietly gliding through the ocean without direction or purpose. To be cautious, he did not immediately enter the ghost ship; instead, he quietly observed it for a while, which allowed him to notice something abnormal.

Every so often, the gray light on the surface of the ghost ship would ebb and flow like the tide. When the tide went out, it was merely a silent ghost ship, but when the tide came in, shadows would float up on the surface’s gray light. As he watched closely, it was as if a silent war film was playing out onboard. Unfortunately, whether due to insufficient energy or some other reason, the shadows were indistinct and fleeting, not continuous. Lin Xiao observed for a long time but could not discern the content.

While he wanted to observe further and be cautious, at a certain moment, a premonition from the unknown told him that the ghost ship was about to disappear.

No more waiting—he had to enter the ghost ship immediately.

The moment he entered, Lin Xiao felt a powerful and icy will overwhelmingly crash into him, as if he was suddenly struck by a heavy truck while crossing a street. Even though he was prepared, the strength of the will was too overwhelming, and it sent him flying back out.

“Damn it!”

Feeling groggy, he held his head and noticed that the enormous battleship nearby seemed more and more blurred. He shook his head forcefully, and indeed, the battleship had become somewhat ethereal, about to vanish.

This wouldn’t do.

Lin Xiao couldn’t bear to watch a delicacy slip away from his lips, so he quickly ordered his warship to approach and ram into it heavily.

“Boom…”

There was no heavy collision as anticipated. When the warship hit the ghost battleship, it melded into it, and that immense, icy will struck his consciousness again. The ghost battleship had already begun to dematerialize. “Not happening!”

Lin Xiao didn’t hesitate to concentrate all his mental energy and fiercely crashed into the incoming evil will.

“Boom!”

It was as if his mind had been hit by thunder, and for a moment, he lost consciousness.

Just at that moment, the gradually dematerializing ghost ship slightly quivered, and a ring of gray translucent ripples spread out. Lin Xiao’s warship, affected by these gray ripples, dematerialized along with the ghost battleship and then disappeared from the sea along with it, leaving behind only the waves as evidence of a brief conflict.

When Lin Xiao regained consciousness, he found himself still on his own warship. However, he noticed that his warship was now transparent, and looking down, he saw that he and all his subordinates had been turned into ghostly figures. They were embedded in the edge of the also transparent ghost battleship, swiftly sailing through pitch-black… void.

“This…”

He was momentarily confused, having never heard of such a state.

If it was the void, he could feel that this pitch-black void was not like the one he had traveled through before.

He could feel that beyond this pitch-black void, many incredibly evil wills were watching him with eyes full of hatred and greed.

Nothing could be seen, but through the contact of wills, he could sense these hateful and greedy wills taking on twisted and corrupt forms.

They stared at him like starving wolves with ravenous hunger, each of them eager and filled with desire, yet none of them took any action.

“Could it be because of this ghost ship!”

He guessed it could only be this reason, that with the protection of the ghost ship, these hungry wolves dared not attack, or rather, could not attack.

No matter the reason, Lin Xiao dared not move an inch at this moment; he dared not bet on what would happen if he were to detach from the ghost ship.

No, he had a strong premonition that if he were to leave the state of being a ghost, his fate would be exceedingly miserable.

Outside this pitch-black void, devoid of a single starlight, countless wills lurked, almost infinite in number, as sensed by him. The deeper his sense reached into the darkness, the more terrified he became—especially at the deepest point of his perception, where many incredibly terrifying beings lay hidden.

He couldn’t sense them clearly, but at the instant of fleeting contact with the revealed fluctuations of their presence, his will involuntarily trembled.

Yes, it trembled involuntarily.

From this, one could infer the horror of those inconceivable beings.

He sat obediently still on the ship, not moving a muscle, his mind constantly spinning, pondering over his current state and what to do next.

He dared not move; now he dared not even return to his cabin or open the system panel, fearing any change that might cause him to lose this state.

This sitting lasted for one week.

Sitting motionless on the deck for an entire week, the ghost ship also maintained the same state of voyage for a week without any change, surrounded by the same old pitch-black void.

Truth be told, if it weren’t for the sense that the endless greedy wills in the surrounding pitch-black void were all different, he would have thought he’d been marking time in the same spot for the whole week.

“Sigh!”

Lin Xiao heaved a heavy sigh, feeling gloomy about his luck.

A week without any gains, and his strength was sure to fall behind. Now he dared not open the panel to check the leaderboard, but he could be certain that his ranking had definitely dropped several places, perhaps even out of the top ten.

But there was nothing he could do. His life was the priority. He could only pray that this ghost ship wouldn’t keep wandering in this unknown void and would leave for the material plane soon.

No sooner had he thought this than a flicker of light passed the corner of his eye—it was the first time he had seen any light in a week, immediately drawing Lin Xiao’s attention. Looking in the direction of the light, he saw a point of starlight twinkling in the distance ahead of the ghost battleship.

As the ghost battleship slowly approached, the twinkling starlight gradually grew larger and brighter, turning from a star point to a luminous dot, and then to a mass of white light.

A day later, that light shone like a sun, with the ghost ship heading straight toward it. The sun grew larger in his vision, ever larger, until…

Upon closing the distance, Lin Xiao discerned that the sun was actually a small floating island illuminated by a fiercely burning orb of milky white flames?

The floating island was not large, roughly ten kilometers in diameter, resembling an inverted mountain peak. Its surface was covered with broken arrays, some still flowing with white energy and in effect; parts were being devoured by infinite black distortions, and the island’s edges were also gnawed and incomplete.

Yes, gnawed.

In places where the orb’s fiery light could not reach, at the edges of the floating island, were boundless pitch-black evil spirit entities, like liquid, surging and relentlessly gnawing at the land at the island’s edges, despite the scorching of the flames.

Continuously, evil spirit entities pushed towards the light and were burnt into black mist and vanished, but the land at the edge of the island was also chewed away bit by bit.

Meanwhile, every so often, a vortex would form in the pitch-black void at the edge of the island, and a shadow, like a black hole swallowing light around it, would surge up onto the island. The power emitted by the burning orb above made the black liquid ooze from its body evaporate into black smoke, yet the shadow bravely charged towards the interior of the island against the fury of the flames.

Then, a colossal altar at the island’s center, surrounded by a ring of golden statues tens of meters tall, came to life. One statue closest to the edge extended its gold-cast right hand and made a grabbing motion. White light converged into a thick bolt of lightning that was hurled fiercely, shattering the black liquid figure.

“A Titan Giant?”

“Boom!”

The ghost battleship, like a ship breaking through waves, collided with the evil twisting spirit entities around the island and firmly docked against it. Then, a large gray vortex appeared on the battleship’s edge, and out flew… a barbarian hero, faintly glowing white and partially transparent, soaring towards the island, accompanied by a massive horde of barbarian troops.

As the barbarian troops entered the island, a circle of light from the burning orb above ensnared them, transforming into beams that accurately struck each soldier, leaving behind small white circles of light at their feet as the beams dispersed.

The barbarian hero then roared commands at his troops, blocking a new black figure that had just surged onto the island, engaging in a fierce battle.

About ten seconds after the barbarian troops departed, a second elf hero rushed out, and to Lin Xiao’s surprise,