Chapter 3: The Unattainable Divine Visage
Darkness. Boundless darkness.
Chen Feng felt like a pebble tossed into a washing machine, his consciousness spinning wildly. This was followed by a powerful sensation of weightlessness that almost made him vomit.
"Bang!"
A dull thud.
Chen Feng felt a sharp pain in his buttocks, as if he had fallen hard onto concrete from a height of two meters.
"Ow, damn... My tailbone..."
He instinctively clutched his rear and groaned, then suddenly froze.
Pain? Wasn't I playing a game? Why is the sensation of pain so real?
He snapped his eyes open.
There was no loading screen, no newbie guide fairy, and no familiar UI interface.
Before him was a breathtakingly magnificent black hall. Though the dome, dozens of meters high, was dilapidated and revealed the gray sky above, the ancient reliefs remaining on the broken obsidian pillars still exuded a sense of trembling age and majesty.
Cold wind poured in through the holes, carrying the scent of decaying earth and the fishy smell of unknown plants, drilling straight into his nostrils.
"Achoo!"
Chen Feng shivered. Cold! The goosebumps raised by the cold wind blowing across his skin were so real his scalp tingled.
"Is... is this freaking holographic game?!"
Chen Feng scrambled up from the ground, staring in shock at his hands—rough and covered in dust, no longer the clean hands that held a mouse in his dorm. But the texture, the patterns of the fingerprints—they were exactly like the real thing!
"Is this... the [Land of the Forsaken Gods]?"
Around him, clusters of white light landed one after another.
"Ow!" "Who stepped on my foot!" "Damn! This floor is so hard!"
The other 14 players also "logged in" one by one. They were all dressed in identical, tattered gray linen shorts and vests (the newbie gear fabricated by Li Wei), looking like country bumpkins entering a grand estate for the first time, their faces filled with shock.
"Incredible... simply incredible..."
Famous tech blogger Wang Kai (ID: What Canned Food I Say) was leaning against a stone pillar, his face almost pressed against the surface. He reached out to scrape off a piece of moss, smelled it, and then pinched it with his fingernail.
"That helmet was actually the real deal?" When his assistant, Little Liu, handed him the package earlier, he thought it was just an ordinary helmet because he couldn't find any circuitry after searching for a long time—until he put it on as instructed.
"There's sap, the smell of grass, and mud under my fingernails..." Wang Kai pushed up his non-existent glasses (which hadn't been brought into the game), his eyes frantic. "Who wrote this physics engine? What's the texture resolution? 8K? No, this definitely exceeds the limits of the human eye!"
"Awesome! One breath of this air makes my lungs feel chilled!" Lei Gang (ID: Online Nickname) did a squat on the spot, showing off the muscle lines of his new body. "This force feedback is incredible! It feels more real than when I'm training at the gym!"
Even more extreme, a player with the ID "Edison Reincarnated" was crouching on the ground, sticking out his tongue to lick an obsidian floor tile.
"Ptooey! It's salty! And a bit bitter!" Edison shouted excitedly. "Brothers! This game even has a taste System! Is the developer a god?"
Upon the high platform.
Seated in the shadows of the throne, Li Wei watched the "Scourge Legion" below jumping around like monkeys, licking the floor, and pinching their thighs. His lips couldn't help but twitch.
"These are Earth's elite players? Why do they seem a bit dim-witted?"
Regardless, complaints aside, Li Wei knew it was time to get down to business.
He looked at Mia, who was hiding behind a pillar next to the throne, her ears flattened back in fear.
"Go on, Mia," Li Wei whispered through the mental link. "Go meet your... otherworldly warriors."
Mia swallowed hard. Although these people looked crazy, she remembered the "infinite dried fish" promised by the Lord Deity. She summoned her courage and, clutching her staff (which was actually just a dead branch) that was taller than her, she stepped out from the shadows.
"U-um..."
Mia's voice wasn't loud, but it was exceptionally clear in the empty hall.
The players' movements instantly froze.
Fifteen pairs of eyes "swish" snapped into focus on that petite figure in perfect unison.
Short gray linen hair, furry cat ears twitching with nervousness, a slender tail swaying restlessly behind her, and those timid, heterochromatic eyes.
A deathly silence lasted for three seconds.
Immediately after, a commotion even more intense than before erupted.
"Holy crap! A cat girl!"
"She's alive! She moves! She's not a 2D character!"
"This modeling! These micro-expressions! The developer understands me! The developer is my daddy!"
A group of grown men had green light shining in their eyes, like hungry wolves seeing a little lamb. They swarmed around her in a flash.
"Can I touch? I'll just touch the ears once!" Edison Reincarnated rushed to the front, his hand that had just licked the floor reaching out wickedly toward the ears on top of Mia's head. "Let me see if they're real!"
"Meow!!!"
Mia had never seen such a spectacle. Her fur stood on end in fright, and she instinctively shrank back.
Just as Edison's finger was only a centimeter away from Mia.
Boom—!
A terrifying weight descended from the hall's dome without warning.
The air in the entire space seemed to instantly solidify into concrete.
"Thud!"
Edison, who was at the front, didn't even make a sound. Like a fly hit by a swatter, he was slammed hard onto the obsidian floor.
"Ouch."
[Warning: Desecrating the Divine Envoy is forbidden!]
This scene was too fast, too brutal.
The players who had wanted to join the commotion slammed on the brakes, each freezing in place.
"Holy crap?!"
Chen Feng looked up in surprise toward the deepest part of the hall.
Upon the ten-meter-high throne, the once-calm black mist suddenly boiled, transforming into indescribable tentacles dancing wildly in the void.
At the center of the roiling black mist, a pair of giant purple-gold eyes slowly opened, looking down at them with coldness, majesty, and superiority.
At that moment, every player felt that the faction boss before them was like an unfathomable abyss.
Li Wei didn't move. He simply sat there, pushing the authority of [Mental Pressure] to its maximum.
"Mortals."
Li Wei's voice was no longer low-pitched as before; it exploded directly within the players' minds, carrying a metallic texture and echo:
"This is the Land of the Forsaken Gods. This is my Divine Domain."
"Cast aside your blasphemous thoughts. Otherwise..."
Li Wei's gaze swept over Edison, who lay motionless on the ground.
"Punishment is only the beginning."
Dead silence filled the room.
This sense of oppression, this aura that caused hearts to stop even without BGM, completely suppressed this lawless group of players.
"This... this NPC is so fierce..." Chen Feng screamed inwardly. "Is this really an online game? The AI intelligence is way too high!"
Li Wei looked at the group of "leeks" below who had finally behaved, and satisfied, he withdrew that trace of Divine Power.
"Mia."
Li Wei spoke indifferently. "Tell them why they have come."
With the Lord Deity's support, Mia finally stopped trembling. She puffed out her small chest, and though tears still clung to the corners of her eyes, she tried her best to put on the air of a Divine Envoy as she looked at the "otherworldly warriors."
"Ahem... Listen up, you foolish... I mean, brave people from another world!"
Mia pointed to the barren wasteland outside the hall and, according to the lines Li Wei had instilled in her, said loudly:
"This world is broken, the gods have fallen, and darkness shrouds the land."
"You are the Immortal Heroic Spirits summoned by my Lord from the river of time! You are the last hope of this wasteland!"
"But!" Mia changed her tone and spread her small hands. "The temple is broken, and we are very poor... I mean, my Lord's Divine Power needs to be restored."
"So, if you don't work, you won't eat!"
As Mia's words fell, a line of pale gold light slowly condensed in front of all the players' vision, transforming into a highly textured quest panel.
[Main Quest: Resurgence of the Temple (Prologue)]
[Quest Description: Looking at this devastated temple, the Great Lord of the Old Days feels a hint of displeasure. As newly arrived followers, you need to prove your worth through labor.]
[Quest Objectives:]
Clear the Hall (0/100%): Remove weeds, rubble, and unknown filth from the plaza.
Repair the Walls (0/10): Transport broken stone pillars to the designated gaps to establish initial defenses.
[Quest Rewards:]
Divine Favor (Affection) slightly increased.
[Warning: If the defensive fortifications are not completed before nightfall, the "Predators" of the wasteland will visit this place.]
Looking at this quest that didn't even provide a newbie wooden sword, the players were stunned for a moment.
"This is way too hardcore. Starting with just our hands?"
"Stop talking nonsense!" Wang Kai (Canned Food) was the first to react, a sharp glint in his eyes. "Look at that last warning! This game has survival pressure! If we don't finish by dark, we might get wiped out!"
"Then what are we waiting for? Start carrying!" Lei Gang (Abbreviation for Lei Gangs ID) roared and walked toward a broken stone pillar.
Although they had no equipment, and although they started as laborers.
But this incredibly real tactile sensation and the sense of participation in "building in another world" made the DNA within these players... stir violently