The players collapsed onto the ground while gasping for breath, yet carried a victorious and satisfied expression on their faces.
By this time, Alto had already flown back to the fortress. Looking at the annihilated pillager army, he wasn't angry at all. Instead, a playful smile curled at the corner of his mouth.
"Interesting. They actually abused the respawns to finish my army."
"But it doesn't matter. That was just an appetizer. The tower is the actual test."
He raised his hand and pressed a button, and one could faintly hear the sound of mechanisms operating deep within the tower.
At the base of the tower, a massive gate slowly opened.
The final stage.
At this moment, the players exploded with excitement.
"Everyone, just one last time! Only this last giant obsidian tower is left. Charge!"
After clearing out the last of the pillagers, the remaining players did not rest and launched another assault.
From the far rear, a steady stream of newly resurrected players was also arriving to join the offensive.
Soon, the lead players had reached the foot of the tower.
Some began trying to build up with blocks while others started destroying the obsidian.
But suddenly, an eye pattern appeared before them.
Immediately after, they felt a heavy sense of sluggishness in their hands.
"Something's wrong! Why are my hands so heavy?"
He looked down at his status bar and spotted a glaringly obvious negative debuff.
[Mining Fatigue III]
Before the excitement of defeating the pillager army could even fade, the players were hit with a harsh reality by the obsidian tower's first line of defense.
Thousands of people swarmed the tower walls with pickaxes in hand, hoping to use human-wave tactics to dig straight through the structure.
Then something ridiculous happened.
When they went to destroy the obsidian, they suddenly found that they couldn't break it at all, no matter how hard they tried.
And this didn't happen only once. All players within a hundred-meter radius of the tower were inflicted with the same crippling debuff.
The players swinging iron pickaxes at the wall were even more dumbfounded.
The iron pickaxes that could barely chip obsidian before now only made a dull thud when they struck the wall.
After hammering for a long time, only a tiny scratch appeared, as if they were trying to dig through indestructible bedrock.
"I can't... I can't destroy it at all!"
"Is this damn pickaxe broken? Why am I getting slower and slower?"
Some players looked at the almost pristine wall with faces full of confusion, completely unaware that this was the effect of a vanilla Minecraft negative debuff.
Boshita recognized it as soon as he got close.
"Isn't this the curse you only find at ocean monuments? Why is it here, too?"
Meanwhile, the development team at the top of the tower had already prepared lava buckets and began pouring glowing red lava down the tower walls.
Some who tried building blocks to climb directly to the top were instantly melted, and the entire tower was engulfed in cascading flames.
A large number of players couldn't dodge in time. The sound of burning, accompanied by their pained and anguished screams, echoed through the air before turning into white light to respawn.
Even more lethal was the precise play of the development team members.
One used an elytra to hover at high altitude with their enchanted bow, hitting every mark, specifically targeting crowded areas and taking out players one by one.
Others dove straight down with a swing of a netherite sword that cut through entire groups. They used their flight mobility to weave through the player ranks, ascending after each kill and leaving behind a field littered with corpses.
The massive sea of people now appeared utterly disorganized.
"The walls won't break, so charge the main gate!"
Boshita made a split-second decision and led the main force toward the entrance at the base of the obsidian tower.
The moment they surged inside, they were stunned by the crisscrossing passages before them.
This was a labyrinth built entirely of obsidian with passages so narrow they could only accommodate two people walking side by side.
The walls had a cold and hard luster. Since there was no light source, they could only rely on torches to barely illuminate the path a few meters ahead.
"Everyone, watch out for traps!"
Just as Boshita's warning fell, a dull explosion rang out in the middle of the group.
The first obstacle.
One player was only focused on charging forward and stepped on an inconspicuous stone pressure plate. After a soft click, the TNT hidden underneath detonated violently. Flames and flying stone fragments scattered everywhere, and over a dozen nearby players were blown away before they could even scream.
"Holy crap! There's TNT buried underneath the floor!"
The surviving players froze in place while staring at the ground in shock. This was the most basic redstone pressure plate trap in Minecraft.
After a short moment of genuine shock, they carefully ventured deeper into the dungeon.
The second obstacle.
Just as the startled crowd breathed a sigh of relief, the walls on both sides of the passage suddenly emitted a strange mechanical sound.
Hundreds of hidden dispensers fired arrows simultaneously, and a rain of arrows flew toward the crowd in a deadly barrage.
In an instant, it eliminated all the players still trapped in that passage. Because of the mining fatigue debuff, the crowd's attempts to dig out the dispensers were extremely slow. They were killed by various traps before they could even break through to disable them.
By now, those who had entered the labyrinth were being tortured to the point of collapse.
The third obstacle.
Just as they dodged the arrow trap, heavy footsteps echoed from deep within the passage. Numerous figures holding iron axes slowly walked out with their blades glinting in the torchlight. They were the vindicators from the woodland mansion.
"What are they? They don't look that strong!"
A player gripped his iron sword and charged forward, trying to strike first, but he didn't expect the vindicator to raise its hand and deliver a devastating axe blow.
With a crack, his health instantly dropped to 0. He didn't even have a chance to resist.
"Holy shit!"
"Those with weak armor, watch out! This thing's damage is ridiculous!"
Someone roared a warning, but the vindicators' brutality far exceeded everyone's expectations.
As the guardians of the woodland mansion, a vindicator's base attack was absurdly high.
When holding an iron axe, they could one-shot an unarmored player. Even with iron armor, two axe blows could shatter the protection and take a life.
They moved with surprising agility as the dull thuds of their axe blades striking home echoed through the corridors.
Combined with the cramped space in the labyrinth, the players had no room to maneuver, and their screams and sounds of combat intertwined in a polyphony of death.
"How is this monster so tough? One hit from the axe, and I'm dead!"
The resurrected players returned with faces full of despair. This kind of high-burst melee monster was too ferocious, and there wasn't even time to react properly.
Time slowly ticked away.
Outside, there were still players attempting to destroy the tower, but progress was painfully slow.
Meanwhile, the players who had entered were being tortured into complete misery.
Wave after wave of traps rapidly harvested lives without mercy.
Equipment was exhausted, and potions were used up. Some even charged in naked, only to die even faster.
All sorts of varied mechanical traps were rapidly reaping lives.
From time to time, there were also sudden attacks from various monsters that had been transported into the maze.
When they finally managed to fight their way to the topmost floor, a change occurred.
The final stage.
A spacious hall appeared before the survivors.
Inside, a large number of obsidian pillars stood tall. At the very top of each pillar, a single block of water was trapped in place.
The entire hall was silent.
Someone took cautious steps while testing the floor with their toes and scanning the surroundings with a wary gaze, but they didn't trigger any traps.
"Could it be that there are no traps in this stage?"
His heart stirred, and he quickened his pace toward the center of the hall.
But the moment he approached the stone pillars, something happened.
Hey guys, I'm so sorry for the lack of posts, but I live in Europe...
And lemme tell ya, I feel like a roasted chicken...
It's way too hot, I'm dyin' y'all!!!!