Chapter 2: Corruption
Su Xiao sat on a stone bench by the street. Not far away, a vagrant lay wrapped in a tattered cloth, the key point being that his body twitched occasionally.
In front of this vagrant, a sturdy man in a fine linen short-sleeved shirt was crouching. He held a knife nearly 40 centimeters long in his hand, the blade sharpened to a fine edge, the handle wrapped in blood-stained cloth strips.
This sturdy man had been crouching there for a while, seemingly growing impatient. The vagrant wrapped in the tattered cloth in front of him twitched occasionally.
Suddenly, the vagrant sat up. He was dazed for a moment, then his expression twisted violently. He bared his dry, yellow teeth, saliva spraying from between them. Black lines appeared on his face, spreading down his neck.
Seeing this, the sturdy man grabbed the vagrant's hair with one hand, pressed the knife in his other hand against the vagrant's throat, and slashed hard.
With a tearing sound, blood gushed out. The throat-slit vagrant, however, seemed to feel no pain, reaching out with one hand towards the sturdy man's face.
The sturdy man pressed the vagrant to the ground. The look in his eyes wasn't cruelty, but numbness, as if he was long accustomed to this scene.
"Brother, I'll help you find peace. It'll be over soon. My knife is sharp."
As he spoke, the sturdy man stabbed the knife into the vagrant's back.
"Bear with it, bear with it. It'll be over soon."
As the sturdy man spoke, the violently struggling vagrant gradually lost his strength. His murky pupils slowly returned to brown.
"Looks like I... was corrupted. Th-thanks."
After saying this, the vagrant lost all strength. Looking closely, one could see that within his splattered blood were countless black energy threads. As the vagrant died, the black threads in the blood gradually evaporated, dispersing into the air.
Su Xiao witnessed the entire scene. Ancient God, corruption, release, willpower check—linking these keywords together pointed to something very serious.
If Su Xiao's guess was correct, the Ancient God encountered this time was far more troublesome than imagined. The natives of this world only needed a moment's lapse in willpower to be corrupted by the Ancient God's energy, their will turning into a frenzied beast, controlling their bodies to attack everything in sight.
"That's right, this damned world is exactly like that. Since entering this world, I've already undergone more than a dozen willpower checks. But as long as you're a contractor, you can pass them."
A voice came from beside Su Xiao. He turned his head and saw a girl wearing a miner's hat, a mining shovel hanging from her waist, one hand on her hip. Her face wasn't particularly pretty, with some freckles, but overall she radiated youthful vitality.
"Don't look at me like that. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. I'm a worker. You can call me Aries."
The female worker, Aries, also sat down on the long stone bench, looking around. After confirming there were no suspicious people, she took out a half-meter-long metal rod.
"This is a receiver for hidden marks. Simply put, when those two sides make a transaction, you can use this to detect the transaction location. The hidden coordinates are formed with space-time power and can last for 20 days. If those two sides don't trade within 20 days, there's no other way."
Aries handed over the receiver. Su Xiao didn't speak, just took it.
"Bro, why aren't you talking?"
"..."
"Don't want to talk?"
"..."
"Reincarnation Paradise sent a cold guy. But we don't need to cooperate. I've already completed my mission."
Aries was in a good mood, but she was a chatterbox.
"Have you seen the Ancient God in this world?"
Su Xiao confirmed that there was an Ancient God in this world, but some things he couldn't figure out for now.
"Huh? You spoke. You actually spoke."
Aries was clearly a bit neurotic. She was now swaying left and right, observing Su Xiao from all angles.
"..."
"Figuring out there's an Ancient God so quickly, not bad. No wonder you were chosen to invade the world."
"Killed a few."
"Uh~, alright, you're tough. Don't mess with the Ancient God in this world. The situation here is super complicated. Also, if you see corrupted people or animals, kill them immediately. The animals in this world are amazing—many are intelligent and can communicate normally. That's it. See ya."
After saying this, Aries stood on the edge of the bench, then leaped, landing steadily with her arms outstretched.
"Woof."
Bubu Wang arrived, barking. Amu and Baha were also there. As for Beini, she should be nearby too.
[Entering World: Dark Star World.]
World Difficulty: Lv.55 ~ Lv.76
Location: Dark Star Continent · Old Royal Capital · Talo
World Source: 0%.
World Introduction: Don't be fooled by appearances. What you firmly believe in may be the origin of evil.
[Dark Star Era · Year 259: Humans, beasts, and insects coexisted peacefully. Occasional conflicts weren't enough to spark war. After all, all intelligent beings worshipped the Mother Goddess, the deity who gave birth to all things.]
[Dark Star Era · Year 709: Times changed, civilization advanced. Humans built stone cities on the plains, beasts created homes in the forests, and even the insects established their own civilization underground. The three sides often traded, maintaining peace through mutual restraint. But at some point, fewer beings worshipped the Mother Goddess.]
[Dark Star Era · Year 1198: This was the greatest era. Humans followed their king, the Light King. Beasts revered their Great Sage. Insects were ruled by the Wolf Spider Queen, but it was only rule, not oppression. The insects remained busy, diligently building their underground kingdom.]
[At some point, disaster quietly descended. All humans, beasts, and insects remembered that year—Dark Star Era · Year 1207. The Ancient God descended upon this world. The first thing to disappear was the warmth of sunlight. Human grand buildings began to decay, forests withered, the insects' underground kingdom collapsed in large areas, resources grew scarce. But this wasn't the worst.]
[Dark Star Era · Year 1214: Years passed. Countless warriors set out to defeat the Ancient God, but... no one saw that Ancient God. Anyone who dared set foot in its domain would have their consciousness go berserk, their soul twisted, their body mutated. Fight? No, they weren't even qualified to fight.]
[Dark Star Era · Year 1215: The Ancient God was angered and brought down disaster. No matter where beings were, they would be corrupted by the god's consciousness. Humans, beasts, and insects were on the brink of collapse. In their darkest moment of despair, the Mother Goddess appeared and engaged in a death battle with the Ancient God. But... the Mother Goddess lost. Most of her body was corrupted, and she nearly fell.]
[Dark Star Era · Year 1215: The human leader, the Light King, entered the forbidden land, accompanied by the Great Sage revered by the beasts and the Wolf Spider Queen. This was the second declaration of war against the Ancient God, and also a mission to rescue the Mother Goddess.]
[The plan to rescue the Mother Goddess ultimately succeeded. As the price, the Light King lost his arms, the Great Sage could no longer listen to nature, and the Wolf Spider Queen became violent, cruel, and sometimes even insane.]
[The Mother Goddess set aside her lofty dignity and proposed a plan: she would mate with the strongest human, the Light King, to produce offspring. Then, using the Great Sage's knowledge, this offspring would be raised as a vessel—a vessel to seal the Ancient God.]
[Dark Star Era · Year 1219: The vessel was born. He was the offspring of the strongest human and a deity, meant to stand above all living things. But he had no emotions, no self, not even a name. He was just a vessel, burdened with a mission before birth: to seal the Ancient God.]
[A vessel alone wasn't enough. The Ancient God was too powerful. Besides the vessel, 'chains' were needed to reinforce the seal. The Light King, the Great Sage, and the Wolf Spider Queen became these 'chains.' They used their souls as 'chains,' winding around the vessel.]
[The seal... succeeded. The Ancient God was sealed within the vessel. Corruption ceased. Everyone praised the Mother Goddess, the Light King, the Great Sage, and the Wolf Spider Queen, but no one remembered the vessel.]
[Dark Star Era · Year 1657: Hundreds of years passed. Everything returned to calm, even forgotten. Until this day, cracks appeared on the vessel, and intelligent beings were corrupted again. Fortunately, compared to hundreds of years ago, now one only needed to stay strong-willed, without fear of the Ancient God in their hearts, to avoid corruption. The Ancient God had not yet broken free.]
[Disagreements arose among the Light King, the Great Sage, and the Wolf Spider Queen. They had persisted for hundreds of years. Perhaps their limit was not far off.]
Mother Goddess: Sleeping.
Light King (Representing Humans): Advocates cultivating a new vessel for a second sealing of the Ancient God.
Wolf Spider Queen (Representing Insects): Advocates opening the vessel, gathering all strength, and fighting the Ancient God to the death, completely eliminating it.
Great Sage (Representing Beasts): Advocates stabilizing the situation, watching and waiting, always maintaining a neutral stance.
[World, Start.]
...