Chapter 286: The Villains of Ys All Have Questionable Aesthetics
[The Black Tower has completely collapsed, with the second to sixth floors simultaneously destroyed.]
[The monster horde of the Clan of Darkness will no longer spawn from inside the tower; their spawn point has shifted to the 'Root of Evil'.]
[Due to the Black Tower being completely destroyed, the leader of the Clan of Darkness, 'Dares', will be forcibly exposed. All players will receive Dares' real-time coordinates, and this situation will continue until Dares is defeated.
If the holder of the Root of Evil, 'Dares', is killed, the Twin Goddesses faction will achieve complete victory.]
[Note: Only weapons and items reinforced with Cleria Ore can deal effective damage to Dares.]
The moment the Black Tower collapsed and hit the ground, all players present received the same system prompt. However, no one looked at it; they simply didn't have the time!
Due to its immense height and size, the Black Tower's tilt and collapse seemed slow but was actually swift. Only a small number of monsters on the outer edges of the monster front, which were completely enveloped by the tower's shadow, managed to pull away. The monsters trapped inside, with nowhere to escape, could only watch the Black Tower grow larger in their vision and personally experience the impact of its fall.
Gravity! Magnificence! No words needed!
The monsters at the point of impact didn't even feel any pain; their bodies were crushed into dust.
Compared to them, the monsters on the outer edges of the front might have suffered more.
The shockwave generated by the collapsing Black Tower hitting the ground swept countless broken rocks, sand, and metal fragments outwards in all directions. With the force of this impact, any fragment possessed destructive power comparable to a firearm.
Among the monsters that weren't directly hit and managed to escape a certain distance, some unlucky ones were directly riddled with holes by the flying hard debris.
The massive dust cloud stirred up by the Black Tower's collapse completely obscured the tragic scene, which was enough to give Dares a heart attack. Just looking at it made one's throat itch, making them want to cough a few times.
This single blow instantly wiped out roughly seventy to eighty percent of the Clan of Darkness's monster army, which could originally be described as a massive force. Only about ten percent remained... and they had completely lost their will to fight.
Everything that happened was so exaggerated that it seemed to overload the CPUs of these monster units, whose minds were only filled with thoughts of combat and attacking humans. They neither retreated nor attacked, not even retaliating; they just stood there dumbfounded.
The first floor of the Black Tower, the Crying Domain, was previously consumed by the Hell Serpent containing Cleria Ore, which was considered a source seal. Therefore, all remaining monsters belonging to that domain were destroyed. However, the current collapse of the Black Tower only destroyed the tower itself. Theoretically, Dares, who holds the Root of Evil, could still guide human negative emotions and create monsters using himself as a barracks.
But with the Black Tower down, a signal amplification tower was gone, and the internal commands of these monsters became chaotic, leading to their current state of collective stupor.
The members of the Twin Faction also witnessed this terrifying scene.
Whether players or NPCs, or even the NPC projections who inherently didn't fear death, all felt incredibly fortunate at this moment. They were glad that their pursuit speed wasn't fast and that there were still some monsters blocking their way; otherwise, they themselves might have become casualties of the tower's fall.
And seeing the monster horde in a daze, they naturally wouldn't hold back their attacks.
The group of Temple Knights and Mage NPCs, however, seemed to be slow on the uptake. Precisely because they had searched inside the Black Tower, they were even more shocked by everything that had just happened.
But as many of them attacked, their hearts were also full of questions.
Why did the Black Tower on the opposite side fall? And why did it precisely land on the monster front? Was this done by their own players or NPCs? If so, how was it done, and did it have anything to do with that fiery snake-like behemoth that climbed onto the tower earlier?
However, amidst the crowd, Congming Tou scanned the area and, upon confirming that Cheng Tian was indeed absent, a certain realization dawned on his large face beneath the iron mask.
There was no evidence, but he just had a feeling that this matter was inextricably linked to Cheng Tian.
But if there was anyone present whose emotions were the most intense, it was undoubtedly Dares.
The moment the Black Tower completely crashed into the monster front, his mind went blank.
Everything that had happened, from the Hell Serpent breaking through the ground and devouring the tower, was beyond Dares' comprehension.
He could retroactively claim to understand Cheng Tian's actions, but even if time were to rewind, he wouldn't be able to stop Cheng Tian's tower-toppling act, unless he simultaneously possessed the complete Root of Evil and the Black Pearl.
A rumble from the ground attracted the blank-minded Dares.
He looked towards the dust-shrouded ground with a rather dazed expression. Then, the Hell Serpent, now free from the tower's confines, assumed a typical cobra-like threat posture: its lower body coiled defensively, its upper body upright, and its mechanical neck frill spread wide.
Its mouth, which simultaneously contained the structures of a tunnel boring machine and an electromagnetic railgun, was already wide open.
Magic Shield!
A pure purple magical glow enveloped Dares' entire body as he sensed the danger. The next second, the 'Hellfire Railgun' spewed from the Hell Serpent's mouth completely engulfed him, shield and all!
Cheng Tian's combat philosophy was actually quite similar to that of a tiger: he possessed immense power but utterly disdained strange concepts like samurai duels or knightly honor.
He would directly launch a sneak attack when enemies performed 'pseudo-invincible' actions like transforming into a beautiful girl or a robot, and he felt no shame about it!
As the Hell Serpent spewed fire, Cheng Tian, in the cockpit, was also synchronously 'spewing fire' from his mouth, and all his bones were clattering loudly.
This was a sign of Cheng Tian's excessive excitement. He didn't even bother to look at the series of spatial prompts he received for destroying the entire Black Tower; he was solely focused on burning Dares to a crisp!
But at this moment, a change occurred in Dares' direction, who had been swallowed by the Hellfire Railgun.
The magical barrier, which had originally only enveloped Dares himself, grew larger and larger... No, Dares himself changed. His figure grew larger and larger, becoming increasingly distant from a human form.
Dares had transformed into a massive monster, a hybrid of a demon's upper body mixed with different incomplete monster bodies.
As the leader of the Clan of Darkness, his demon factor was naturally more abundant. However—
"Ah... Ahhh..."
Seeing his current ugly appearance through the magic mirror, Dares instinctively used his demonized claws to scratch his own body. His voice, with its inherent magical echo, was filled with trembling.
Because he hadn't had the chance to absorb the power within the Black Pearl, and the Root of Evil was incomplete due to the fragments in Cheng Tian's possession, the ultimate demon form, which Dares believed should have been the most perfect deep fusion of human and demon in this world, was now so utterly hideous.
"Damn it... Damn it!!!!!"
"I will—kill you!"
With Dares' roar, the evil magical resonance from his complete fusion with the Root of Evil spread, interfering with the Hell Serpent's core and forcibly interrupting the continuous output of the Hellfire Railgun.
[Leader of the Clan of Darkness, 'Dares', has entered an incomplete demonized form.]