Chapter 1: The Temple (Part 4)
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In a quiet, spacious basement, a few shadowy figures swayed gently to the flickering flames beside their seats.
Xiao Ai’s surprised voice hung in the air for what felt like ages, but not a single soul responded. All she could hear was the varying sounds of breathing around her, mixed with the soft crackling of burning oil.
Suddenly, Xiao Ai sensed that things weren’t quite right—she took a quick glance around and noticed everyone’s faces were looking more serious than a cat caught in a dog show.
Drawing on her years of experience editing videos and interacting with people, she figured Firefly’s condition might not be as simple as she imagined. No, it was, in fact, way beyond her expectations.
At this point, after Jing Feng’s brief treatment, Firefly seemed to be in better spirits than before. She could finally manage to lift her eyelids and glance at Lin Nan, who was sitting beside her.
“Sister, I knew it was you,” Firefly said with a smile that resembled an old man’s sigh of relief while watching the sunset—sweet, yet tragically heart-wrenching.
Lin Nan, without an ounce of distaste, took her bark-like right hand and replied gently, “Yes, it’s me.”
Firefly regarded her intently, “I can tell you everything I know, but my subordinates are fiercely loyal to me and the guild. If possible, please spare them.”
Lin Nan sighed, “To be honest, I can’t guarantee that if they keep attacking their own kind.”
“I understand, I’ll do my best to persuade them,” Firefly coughed lightly.
“Let’s rewind to a couple of weeks ago. Back when Sky Sword City was surrounded by rookie villages, a flood of new players was pouring into the city, coinciding with the malfunction of the Small Thousand World teleportation array. At that time, I had just formed a guild with a bunch of fans, thinking there had to be loads of new players who loved the idea of an over-the-top protagonist, so I settled on the ridiculously cliché name Crazy Dragon Guild.”
“Little did we know, the game developers were about to throw a bombshell.”
“As we watched other guilds frantically recruit players, we had no choice but to keep up just to survive. Before we knew it, Crazy Dragon Guild had grown to become the second-largest guild after Heavenly Sword Sect, right before Sky Sword City completely locked down.”
“To compete for scarce survival resources in the city, we had to battle with other guilds daily—it was a bloodbath, and countless players met their doom.”
“Then, just over ten days ago, I received a system message. Yes, you heard that right—a system message that had been MIA for ages.
It instructed me to head to the Fountain Square in the center of Sky Sword City by 10 PM that night.
Even though I had no idea what it was about, I saw that system message and grabbed onto it like a drowning person clings to a lifeline. I wasn’t letting go, no matter what!”
“At 10 PM, I arrived at the Fountain Square, only to find another fifteen guild leaders had also shown up. We exchanged glances without a word, but we all knew the drill—if we hadn’t received that precious system message, why would we abandon our guild members to come here during such a tense situation?”
“Ten minutes passed, and while we were anxiously waiting and thinking we might’ve collectively fallen for a prank, a man wrapped head to toe in a black robe appeared before us.”
“He said, ‘Follow me to a place. You can also choose to walk away, but the ones who do might face punishments you can’t afford tomorrow.’
At that point, there was no way the sixteen of us were giving up so easily. We all thought the same: Let’s just follow this mysterious guy and see what’s up. After all, if he could send us a system message, he was probably with the game developers or something—and maybe he was here to solve the mess in Sky Sword City.”
“As it turns out, we were mostly right about our assumptions, but how he planned to fix it blew our minds.”
Maybe she had been talking for too long without a break, but Firefly started to look a little weary, her face taking on an unusual flush.
After a moment’s rest, she struggled to continue, as if worried that if she didn’t finish now, she’d never get another chance.
Lin Nan had Jing Feng come over and cast a calming buff on her, trying to minimize the risk of her getting too excited and causing a medical emergency.
The fallen beings guarding the door glanced over with worried looks, scanning the room with judgmental eyes before they settled back into their spots.
“I’m fine… cough cough…”
“We had no idea that in the center of the fountain was a mechanism. Once we touched it, a dark tunnel appeared before us. The Man in Black was the first to enter, and the rest of us had no choice but to follow closely behind.”
“It was hard to fathom, but beneath Sky Sword City lay a massive, grand underground palace—so expansive it could rival the scale of the city itself. We were all momentarily stunned. Yet, we speculated that this palace was likely similar to the properties of Small Thousand World, and wasn’t actually beneath the city. Otherwise, with so many NPCs living there, how could they have missed anything unusual on the surface?”
“We followed him all the way to the most magnificent building in the palace, which the Man in Black called the Sighs Temple.”
At this point, Lin Nan’s eyes widened in shock.
Sighs Temple? Isn’t it supposed to be deep in the East Sea? How on Earth did it end up beneath Sky Sword City?
Could it be…was the boy trapped down here by Frost North Snow behind all this?
Firefly noticed her reaction and smiled faintly, “I had a hunch you might know that name. Looks like I didn’t wait for the wrong person.”
Lin Nan nodded slowly, “Yes, I’ve heard of it. Please, continue.”
“Alright. The Man in Black led us up to the temple and commanded us to kneel before a gigantic statue standing tall in the center of the temple.
Someone questioned him, saying, ‘Who the heck are you? Can we skip the superstitious mumbo-jumbo? I don’t kneel to any of these spooky figures. Let’s get to the point, I’ve got no time to play dress-up.’
And the next second, his head burst like a watermelon smashed on the ground, splattering bl**d and brain matter everywhere.
We were all taken aback. From that moment, we realized that the Man in Black was leagues above us in strength. Even together, we were no match.
So, we had no choice but to kneel.
However, from that moment we knelt, a strange sensation spread from the soles of our feet throughout our bodies.
The Man in Black referred to it as a ‘baptism.’
It felt like a million divine beings were chanting in my ears at once, or like being in a disco where the music exploded—voices were swelling and crashing within me, and I even saw a huge bubble protruding from my forehead, with white brain matter bubbling inside.
When I finally came to my senses, I was drenched in cold sweat, my hair sticking to my forehead like I just got out of a sauna, feeling like I had just fought off a severe illness.”
“Then the Man in Black said, ‘You are now beings of the divine.’”
