Chapter 2

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio

Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

A fire was lit, and the cold, wet room within the barracks started feeling warmer.

Gu Qingshan stabbed the short knife into the ground next to him. He sat on a mat on the floor against the window, his wounds all bandaged up.

His face looked fairly grim.

He would go into a daze now and then.

He tried hard to recall many things, but everything was a blur.

The soldier’s name was Zhao Liu. He brought a pot of water and put a lid over it after hanging it above the fire.

Zhao Liu pulled out a pretty little box and held it out to Gu Qingshan. He said, “It’s all thanks to you that I didn’t have to die at the hands of that creature.”

“What’s this?” asked Gu Qingshan as he took the box from Zhao Liu.

Zhao Liu replied, “It’s the last two healing pills in this camp.”

Gu Qingshan asked, “Why don’t you keep them for yourself?”

Zhao Liu shook his head. “I’m not a cultivator, so I can’t use these things.”

Gu Qingshan opened the box, and there were really two pills inside.

Gu Qingshan took one out and inspected it carefully in his hand.

The pill was in one, good piece, and even the thin layer of sealing wax around it hadn’t peeled off at all.

There was a faint fragrance coming from the pale green pill, making him feel more energetic by just smelling it.

This was a healing pill.

Healing pills were the poorest type of healing potion, so Gu Qingshan had never taken a second look at them in the past. But after he’d went through a character reset, everything he’d cultivated before had gone right back to zero. He was now wounded all over, so these two healing pills had become priceless treasures.

Gu Qingshan couldn’t help but ask, “Is the entire camp only left with these two healing pills?”

Zhao Liu sighed and replied, “That’s right. After everyone died, no more supplies came in. Not just pills—we’re not left with much of anything.”

Gu Qingshan was silent for a while, then he suddenly thought of one thing. “Are there anymore Spirit Stones here?”

Zhao Liu replied, “Nope.”

“Then, we’re doomed,” sighed Gu Qingshan.

Zhao Liu hurriedly asked, “Why?”

Gu Qingshan replied, “The Concealment Magic Formation around this place is already very weak. If you don’t supplement it with more Spirit Stones, it’s going to disappear in no time.”

Zhao Liu shuddered. Then, he got up and dashed out like a lunatic.

If the Concealment Magic Formation disappeared, the demons would discover this camp and they would both die for sure.

No wonder those two captains had had despair in their eyes when they’d left a few days ago.

Gu Qingshan watched him dash out, and after counting to ten, there was a faint buzzing sound from outside.

This sound meant that new Spirit Stones had been added to the formation and it was being reactivated.

Gu Qingshan let a small sigh of relief out when he heard this sound.

Zhao Liu had some Spirit Stones hidden away after all.

In this world, every single person was real and made of flesh and blood. If you treated them as dumb NPCs, you would be the one on the losing end.

Gu Qingshan had come to understand this a long time ago.

After a while, Zhao Liu dragged his feet along and came back. He leaned against the wall and slowly sat down, then he held his face and started crying.

Gu Qingshan asked, “What are you crying about?”

Zhao Liu replied, “This time, we really don’t have anymore Spirit Stones. Once the formation uses up all these Spirit Stones, we’re going to be killed by the demons.”

Gu Qingshan fell silent for a moment, then he broke the seal on the pill and swallowed the Healing Pill whole. He started trying to feel the Spirit inside his body.

Initially, he was a little doubtful and wasn’t sure if he would be able to sense the Spirit.

But, surprisingly, everything went well. The Spirit inside his Dantian immediately responded to his call and cooperated with him to disperse the medicinal components of the pill to all parts of his body.

Gu Qingshan felt nice and warm all over, and his wounds started feeling a little numb and itchy.

His wounds were beginning to heal.

By the time Gu Qingshan opened his eyes again after all of the medicine had been used up, it was already well after midnight.

Gu Qingshan stood up and moved around for a while. He realized that his body felt much better, and there were new scabs over many of his wounds.

Zhao Liu was still standing guard on one side, his head nodding off from drowsiness. He noticed that Gu Qingshan had woken up, so he looked at him with bleary eyes and asked, “How are you feeling? Feeling better? Can you take me along to escape this place?”

The last question was the question he’d really meant to ask. Otherwise, he probably wouldn’t have taken those healing pills out.

Gu Qingshan replied to him honestly, “I’m feeling better, but it will take several more days before I can recover enough to fight.”

“Then, you’d better rest.”

Zhao Liu was disappointed as he stood up, then turned and left.

After Zhao Liu walked away, Gu Qingshan sat by himself on the ground and fell into deep thought.

In the time he came from, the demons of the game had already entered the real world and destroyed the civilized order of the human race.

The remaining humans had only been able to linger around and keep breathing as they’d waited for the end of the world to fall upon them in front of their very eyes.

Everything had reached its final destination.

When he thought about it now, there were actually a lot of questionable areas back when the game had first started.

At that time, the various nations of the real world had gone all-out to promote this game.

They’d been willing to give you anything—food, money, women, power—as long as you’d become strong enough within the game.

Many strange things had happened all over the world too, but the authorities had covered up everything, so ordinary folk hadn’t known anything at all.

It had only been when someone had actually brought a weapon from the game back into the real world, that ordinary folk had realized that this had not been a game. It had been a completely different realm.

Everyone had started entering the game like crazy.

But the demons inside the game had been so terrifying, many had despaired.

Even though there’d been nearly a billion players inside the game to help the humans in this different realm to fight against the demons, the humans had lost time and again in the final deciding battle.

In the final deciding battle, the game had made a public announcement that, once the humans had lost this last battle, the demons would take over the realm in the game, as well as invade the real world.

The real world was going to have been completely destroyed by the demons.

The entire real world went insane.

Every human above the age of five had been ordered to set up an account and enter the game.

Like what many people had said, even if one had been at a low level and hadn’t had any attacking powers, they could’ve helped to defend against at least one attack from the enemy.

But in this last battle, the humans had still lost.

Only the National Guild, led by Gu Qingshan, managed to complete the mission given to them by the system and had made their way to the Ultimate Demon Lord.

After the other players had died in the battle, Gu Qingshan had struck the Ultimate Demon Lord off its Blood Throne of Myriad Bones, and he’d finally had a chance to kill off this final boss.

But at this moment, a solemn message from the system had resounded twice in a row.

“The last Deity of the humans has fallen, and the defense of the empire of the humans has been broken through. Battle result: Humans have failed.”

“The game will now end. The protective force field will be broken, and the real world will begin its destruction.”

BOOOM…

There had been a loud blast as everyone was forced to leave the game and watch the end of the real world fall upon them.

Just before he’d been forcibly ejected from the game, Gu Qingshan had raised his weapon without caring about anything else and stabbed his weapon into the heart of the Ultimate Demon Lord as hard as he could.

Before he had been able to see the result, everything had gone dark before Gu Qingshan’s eyes, and he’d been forced to leave the game.

But he hadn’t ended up returning to the real world that had been facing its doom. Instead, he completely lost consciousness.

Even though he hadn’t been conscious, Gu Qingshan still had been able to hear a robotic voice.

“Player Gu Qingshan has killed the Ultimate Demon Lord, leaving one last spark for the world that has fallen into the great chasm of despair. He will be specially given the ultimate reward.”

Gu Qingshan had felt that there was something new in his hands, then he didn’t remember anything else.

When he woke up again, he was in that mass grave outside the barracks.

When he came to this point in his memories, Gu Qingshan shook his head and let out a long sigh.

It was such a pity. The game had been ongoing for about ten years, but he had never heard anything about any ultimate reward.

He really wanted to know what that was.

Wait. That wasn’t quite right.

Gu Qingshan suddenly recalled one thing.

When he woke up in the pile of corpses, there seemed to be something in his hand.

It was that short knife!

Gu Qingshan suddenly looked down.

The short knife was still in the ground next to him.

This was a gold-colored, short knife. There weren’t any additional carvings on the blade, and it gleamed sharply in the light.

When Gu Qingshan focused his eyes on it, he could still see a gold gleam appear from time to time on the knife.

Gu Qingshan started to recall, bit by bit, what had happened earlier, and his heart started beating faster and faster.

This knife had already been in his hands before he’d killed the Squad Leader.

For some strange reason, he felt that wielding this knife came rather naturally to him, so he didn’t bother searching the other corpses for other weapons.

Had this knife already been buried with the corpses? Or had he brought it out from the final battle?

Gu Qingshan held the short knife and hesitated for a moment before directing the Spirit in his Dantian into the knife.

After the Spirit entered the short knife, the gold gleam spread through the place, becoming a huge, gold brightness.

A faint sense of rugged majesty started emanating from the gold knife.

“Weapon successfully smuggled over. Activating now.”

An icy, robotic voice rang out.

Gu Qingshan wasn’t sure if it was just him, but he felt that this system’s voice seemed to be a little unable to control its excitement.

In the next moment, the gold knife in Gu Qingshan’s hand burst into countless shiny, gold bits.

These bright gold bits floated in the air, went two rounds around Gu Qingshan, and then flowed in between his brows.

Gu Qingshan heard a loud booming sound in his ears. His mind went completely blank, and he was frozen on the spot, unable to move at all.

After a long while, the icy, robotic voice sounded extremely tired as it made this announcement.

“Activation is successful. War God Operating Interface activated.”