《I Am The Only Top-up Player》 Chapter 1 Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation There was a thick fog all around and Su Hao had to strain to open his eyes. He felt as if he was being wrapped in a sponge, and it was difficult to even stretch his limbs. Ba-dump! Ba-dump! Ba-dump! The intense and dull sound of a heartbeat rang in his ears, as if he was inside the heart of something else. What followed was the feeling of being squeezed and suffocated. Crack! The next moment ¡­ Su Hao opened his eyes all of a sudden. A strange light shone on his pupils, causing it to shrink to the size of a needle tip in an instant. He had difficulty getting used to the blinding light. It was as if the darkness in front of him had been torn apart to form a hole. When Su Hao finally became accustomed to the light in front of him, he found himself lying on a soft sofa. The crackling sound of burning wood could be heard just up ahead. A warm fire was burning in the fireplace. He was in a dark and dilapidated castle, where the only light was from the flickering flames of the candle stands on the walls. He was back. Su Hao narrowed his eyes slightly. He was well aware of what kind of world he was in. It was a world where all players were lords! Every Lord owned a territory right from the beginning. The lords could freely develop and expand their territory, recruit troops, build fortifications, and defend against foreign enemies. Su Hao sneered when he thought about the enemies. There was a trace of coldness in his eyes. He thought that his enemies would only be countless frenzied monsters in the dark, but that day had finally arrived¡ªthe Eternal Night! The world fell into endless darkness on the day of the Eternal Night. There was neither any light nor any sun. Countless evil creatures broke through the darkness and charged into the world. The demons were all revived and they invaded the territories on a large scale. The human lords were unable to stop the disastrous invasion, and 28 million out of the 30 million lords had disappeared in just one day. Su Hao, being the last batch of lords to fight against the demons, only managed to resist for three days. The humans were all exterminated! The demons and monsters took only three days to destroy mankind from the beginning of the Eternal Night. Su Hao¡¯s fingers trembled when he thought of that. The terrifying power of those demons still sent chills down his spine. Had he not activated the unique item to reverse time at the final moment, there would probably be no other human being in that universe. And previously, Su Hao was well aware that the previous war between the lords was just a small fight. Even the monsters hiding in the black fog were just harassing them harmlessly. The Eternal Night was different! He had to become stronger, so much stronger, to the point where even the gods could not contend against him. Only then could he stop the extinction of mankind. As soon as he thought of that, the Game of Lords officially began! At the same time, the flames burning in the fireplace turned into sparks and floated in the air. These dancing sparks formed a line of words. [Congratulations on entering the era of lords!] [Here, you will have a territory that belongs to you and your people. You will lead your people out of the darkness! Expand and develop as much as you can!] [Do not forget that dangers and unknowns fill this entire world. One wrong move and you will lose your life here.] [If you want to survive in this world, there are a few things you must remember.] [1. Darkness will invade this world of lords every seven days. When it happens, a huge black vortex will appear outside your territory, and endless monsters will emerge from it! You need to successfully defend against these monsters, or else you and your territory will be completely destroyed!] [2. The darkness will invade once every seven days, and the difficulty of each invasion will increase. However, every time an invasion is successfully resisted, the lords will receive a chance at the roulette wheel! Please be mentally prepared for that!] [3. You can seek help from the rest of the world, that includes troops, resources, and construction of defenses. Of course, the prerequisite is that other lords are willing to help you!] [4. Aside from the darkness¡¯s invasion, you can also choose to invade the darkness. Of course, the risk of invading the darkness is extremely high, but behind the high risk are huge benefits!] [5. There is a trading platform in this world. You can trade with other lords using items on sale!] [6. Remember, as a lord, you only have one chance to chat in the world each day!] ¡­ Once Su Hao finished reading them, the sparks dissipated into the air as if they never existed. However, the rules were exactly the same as before his rebirth. Su Hao had already read them before. Then, he looked at the first floor of the castle. He was currently sitting on a sofa on the second floor of the castle. The second floor was not large, only about 20 square meters. Other than a bed, there was only a sofa and a fireplace. The first floor was more like a warehouse, where there were 10 stacks of wood, 5 stacks of stone, and 1 ton of coal. Those resources were used to build the castle¡¯s basic defense facilities, such as the arrow tower. The arrow tower blueprint was on the left side of the sofa. In order to successfully resist the first wave of darkness¡¯s invasion, he had build a high-quality arrow tower. Su Hao knew that very clearly. That aside, the rest was up to fate. Every lord had one chance to choose their talent at the start of the game. It was not just about choosing a talent, because it also involved a lottery-like system. The roulette wheel used for the lucky draw was in the warehouse on the first floor. The first roulette was a chance to get talent, troop type, buildings, resources, and other items. The final outcome would all depend on his luck. As he thought of that, he got up and walked to the first floor of the castle. At the same time, he saw the roulette wheel that accompanied him for three years in his previous life. The wheel was not that huge. about half a meter high, and there were a plethora of prizes on it, including talent, troop type, building, and resources. After the draw, a virtual interface would appear, and the interface would show what the draw was. Su Hao stretched out his hand and rubbed the dust that had accumulated on the wheel. The next moment, he pressed the wheel button without hesitation. The wheel began to spin rapidly and a yellow light began flashing. A virtual information template suddenly appeared in front of su Hao! [Congratulations: Lord Su Hao, you have obtained an SSS-Grade Top-Up talent!] [SSS-Grade Top-Up talent: you can buy gift packs from the virtual store! You can buy gift packs with top-up purchases to become stronger!] [For Newbie: 6 gold coins!] [$6 Newbie Gift Pack: SS-Grade Holy Light Bug (unique troop type!)] [Do you wish to purchase it?] [Yes/No] ¡°Yes.¡± Su Hao¡¯s pupils contracted and he said without hesitation as he began breathing rapidly. He had not expected that. Not even one out of 100,000 overlords can get an S-Grade talent. As for himself, he had an SSS-grade talent right from the beginning! For the record, a lord¡¯s talent was divided into seven grades: F, E, D, B, A, S, SS, and SSS. SSS was the highest, and in the lord¡¯s world, every SSS-grade talent, troop type, and even building blueprints were unique. None of the other lords would have been able to obtain his in-game, pay-to-win, top-up talent. Its was described as ¡®unique¡¯, and Su Hao knew that the Holy Light Bug he received was a super top-tier troop type with extraordinary strength! In addition, it was also an SS-Grade! The stronger the starting troop type, the better his starting position would be compared to the other lords! He would also be able to achieve a lot in the future! At that moment, a message popped up from the virtual interface again. [Purchase successful.] [Do you wish to breed SS-Grade Holy Light Bug?] ¡°Of course!¡± It was dark outside the castle and the sound of wild beasts could be heard everywhere. Troops formed the only foundation Su Hao could use to resist the invasion of darkness and stand at the world¡¯s zenith. Chapter 2 Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation [Ding! Congratulations to the lord for successfully purchasing the starter pack!] Following that announcement, Su Hao saw a golden light appear in front of him. It then disappeared just as quickly as it appeared. A Holy Light Bug appeared in front of Su Hao. It was about three centimeters long, with two yellow wings shaped like water ladles on its back. Its head was black and it had six legs under its body, making it look like an enlarged version of a seven-spot ladybird. The Holy Light Bug flapped its wings and chirped after flying in front of Su Hao. In Su Hao¡¯s field of vision, the Holy Light Bug¡¯s information panel appeared. [SS-Grade Holy Light Bug] [Current growth state: Larva] [Characteristics: infinite devouring, infinite splitting!] [Loyalty: 100] Su Hao¡¯s pupils contracted slightly as soon as he saw that, because he knew the exact significance of the words ¡®infinite devouring¡¯ and ¡®infinite division¡¯. In fact, a single larva of an SS-Grade Holy Light Bug was not that strong, but that changed once they had the ability to devour and divide infinitely. In other words, his Holy Light Bugs could bring about a plague to the black fog through that infinite division! The densely packed Holy Light Bugs that blotted out the sky would then sweep across the entire continent! That was the true power of a bug. Rather than relying on individual strength to achieve success, they relied on their strength in numbers as they devoured everything in the blink of an eye. If the Holy Light Bugs entered the darkness, they would devour and evolve on their own. When the time was up, countless holy light bug tribes would return. Thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions, tens of millions! Even tens of billions! Thinking of this, Su Hao immediately commanded the Holy Light Bug to fly toward the wood chips. After the Holy Light Bug quickly devoured the wood chips, it split into two in front of Su Hao¡¯s eyes. The two Holy Light Bugs continued to devour the wood chips. They split into four, then eight, then 16! In just 10 minutes, all the wood shavings in the warehouse had been devoured, and in the meantime, the Holy Light Bugs had divided into several thousand! After seeing the thousands of Holy Light Bugs in front of him, Su Hao immediately thought of the locust plagues seen in many movies. WIthout a natural enemy, the Holy Light Bugs in this lord world would become as densely plagued and sky-covering like a locust plague. At the same time, Su Hao immediately commanded those thousands of Holy Light Bugs to fly out of his territory and disappear into the darkness outside. After all, Su Hao¡¯s resources as a lord were limited, and he could not use his own resources to cultivate his swarm of bugs. The bugs could still be handled if they were small in number, but no lord would be able to bear the cost if the number increased exponentially. At that moment, Su Hao noticed a glowing exclamation mark at the bottom left corner of his vision. He knew that it was the menu. He stretched out his hand and tapped it, whereupon a horizontal list appeared in his field of vision. [Personal Information], [Friend Messages], [World Chat Channel], [Trading Channel], and so on. He could click on all the menus. Su Hao opened his personal information first. [Castle Lord: Su Hao] [Strength: Level Zero] [Castle Level: Basic Castle] [Castle Troop Type: Holy Light Bug (unique troop type)] [Castle Building: none] [Equipment: Wood x 10 units, Stone x 10 units, Coal x 1 ton] [Gold Coins: 0] [Energy Stones: 0] [Mutant Crystals: 0] Su Hao could see from the information that his current strength was zero. He was weak compared to those creatures from the dark. The number of energy stones and mutant crystals on the panel was zero too. After his rebirth, he knew very well that those two things were necessary to have the castle level up. Varying amounts of energy stones could be obtained as long as they killed wild monsters, magical beasts, troops, or seized the castles of other lords. Killing powerful monsters could provide an opportunity to obtain mutant crystals. That was why he had released his Holy Light Bug. Furthermore, his money was zero. In the two months that the lords were opened up to the outside, gold coins had no use at all. However, as someone who had been reincarnated in it, Su Hao knew that gold coins were extremely valuable! Besides, he had also awakened the in-game pay-to-win talent, but even if he did not, he would still use those two months to accumulate as many gold coins as he could! The reason he did that was because none of the lords realized the importance of gold coins in the first two months! And two months later, the lord world will open for business! All lords could use gold coins to buy blueprints for upgrading castles, expanding territories, even upgrading fortifications and buying materials! Su Hao had missed those two golden months In his previous life, which led him to be very tight on money. Given the chance to redo it again, he was going to make use of that information gap to purchase gold coins from the other lords! The current lords viewed gold coins as useless, so if they used materials to exchange for gold coins, they would definitely be able to sell them for an excess value. In his previous life, a stack of wood was worth about five silver coins, the price of which never exceeded seven silver coins even when there was short supply later on. However, Su Hao was prepared to sell wood in the trading market for 50 gold coins a stack when that happened! That was 100 times the price difference! At the same time, this meant that the quantity and quality of Su Hao¡¯s resources would far exceed everyone else¡¯s! Then, a chat message popped up in the [World Chat Channel] and attracted Su Hao¡¯s attention. [Eternal darkness is just outside the castle! I¡¯ve sent my troops out on an expedition, but they¡¯re unable to come back now! Do not step out of the castle! Remember, don¡¯t go out!] [All of my militia went out to collect oil but were killed after encountering a large group of wild beasts! All that¡¯s left in the castle is a pile of useless gold coins¡­] [I sent 10 of my troops out to gather wood, but a level one Black Panther killed them¡­] [Aghh! There¡¯s a bunch of flying beasts soaring above my castle! They must be targeting me!] [All I needed was 10 stacks of wood to build my sword tower! But I don¡¯t have anything else to exchange for other than gold coins¡­ Can anyone be kind enough to lend me some wood? I¡¯ll do anything for you!] [Damn! A giant python is sniffing around in the dark! I can see it! What should I do?] [You¡¯re not the only one. I¡¯m at the end of the road here. A giant lizard is climbing on my castle wall. My death is all but certain¡­] The world outside the castle was still as dangerous as ever. The power of darkness was filled with danger and the unknown. Su Hao could also understand the dire straits those other lords were in after reading the comments. They lacked resources, but they were rich in gold. As for Su Hao, he only needed to exchange materials with them for gold coins. During that period, he would hoard a large amount of gold coins to ensure that he would have an endless supply when business starts in two months. At the same time, as soon as the Holy Light Bugs left the castle, they flapped their wings and glowed with a golden light in the dark. In the dense forest, three huge Black Panthers were running towards them at high speed. The Black Panther was three meters tall! They opened their mouths wide and bit down on the Holy Light bug! In the blink of an eye, the three black Panthers were completely devoured by the thousands of sacred light bugs. [Killed a level one Black Panther, Energy +5] [Killed a level one Black Panther, Energy +5] [Killed a level one Black Panther. Energy +5, Energy Stone +1.] Su Hao could feel three bursts of energy. He lowered his eyes slightly and then took a sip of tea. The SS-Class Holy Light Bugs did not disappoint him at all. A total of 15 points of energy were flowing within Su Hao¡¯s body. He knew long ago that he did not have to do anything to receive the same benefits that could increase his strength and level. What¡¯s important was that his troops killed the ¡®enemy¡¯. At the same time, the bugs doubled in number after they devoured the three black Panthers! Then, the Black Panther¡¯s corpse appeared in the castle. A sentence appeared before Su Hao when saw the Black Panther¡¯s body. [Monster corpse discovered. Would you like to collect it?] [Yes/No] ¡°Yes!¡± [Collection successful!] [20 units of panther meat obtained!] [You received a complete panther skin!] In the world chat channel, one lord had sent more than ten civilians out to collect food, but they were all killed by the level one Black Panther. Su Hao, on the other hand, glanced indifferently at the panther meat and supplies in the warehouse before drinking his tea. Chapter 3 Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation Then, he opened the [World Chat Channel] again. The earlier discussion of beasts in the dark and the danger they were in had changed to the topic of food. Although the lords of each castle could only send one chat message at most every day, there were just too many lords in existence¡ªnumbering a total of two billion. The purchase requests were usually a trade for goods. One energy stone in exchange for three units of food. Ten units of wood in exchange for one unit of food. Five units of stones in exchange for one unit of food. Almost all the Lords in the [World Chat Channel] were asking to buy food. On the other hand, the [Trading Channel] was cold and quiet. There were almost no lords who would trade food for resources, which represented the objective reality that everyone was in. Food was more precious than practical resources like wood! The reason for that was simple¡ªthe wild monsters were too difficult to kill. No lord would want to do something like killing the enemy and losing 800 of their people. After all, the risk was huge, and a careless mistake would plunge his troops and castle into danger. Therefore, food became the most popular buzzword in the trading channel. Just a moment ago, the Holy Light Bugs had killed some more monsters one after another. Su Hao had collected all of them and had obtained 100 units of food. Food was neither scarce nor precious to him, since he could have it whenever he wanted. Gold coins were more important than anything to him right now. He needed to accumulate gold coins to buy a new gift pack! Almost immediately, Su Hao immediately posted the transaction information on the [Hyperspace Trading Channel] next door. [One unit of food for 5000 gold coins.] [Units of food available: 100 units] Once the transaction was announced, the chat instantly became lively. In a situation where they were surrounded by wild beasts and dark forces, any castle lord who could offer up 100 units of food was almost certainly a top-tier existence. After all, there were many castle lords who did not even dare to leave their own castles. Moreover, almost all of the militiamen that were sent out either died or suffered severe injury, with no result to show for. As for the castle lords themselves, they could only collect wood and stones within a 50-meter radius of the castle at most. As long as a monster attacked, they would immediately scuttle back home in fear! As a result, food was extremely precious given that they were constantly under the threat of the dangerous dark forces and wild monsters! One unit of food was already extremely precious, so it was even more surprising that a lord could have 100 units of food for sale. The fact that he could bring so much food meant that he had a strong army or a large number of militia. Such a lord was worthy of respect and support, perhaps even friendship, yet all the castle lords were laughing at Su Hao in the [World Chat Channel]. They thought that Su Hao was a dumb fool! Their reasoning was simple¡ªonly an idiot would exchange food for gold coins! To them, gold coins were just scrap metal. Could the gold coins be used to build sword towers, or build buildings for security? Were they edible or useful to attack wild beasts? The answer to all of that was no. None of them expected that there were still people in such an era of survival who thought that gold coins were important and went so far as to take the risk of going hungry to exchange for gold coins. Such a person was either stupid or wanted to die. The value of the gold coins exchanged for food were reasonably decent too. However, Su Hao was the only one in the entire world who knew that the world would have a business mode two months later. Once the business mode was activated, gold coins would become the only currency in circulation! At the same time, one catty of food would only cost 50 silver coins! By contrast, the price that Su Hao listed on the trading channel¡ªwhich was one unit of food for 5000 gold coins¡ªwas more than a hundred or even a thousand times that future value! It was like using a blunt knife to shave the meat off all the lords, and he wanted them to be grateful to him in the end too! Many of the lords laughed and mocked him in the chat interface! [I wouldn¡¯t have believed this if I didn¡¯t see this message in the Hyperspace Trading Channel with my own eyes. Only stupid people trade food for gold. I can¡¯t believe such people still exist!] [A lord who can offer 100 units of food must be very powerful, but it¡¯s still quite a pity. Could he be a capable yet intellectually-challenged lord? Or does he have a hobby of collecting gold coins?} [Who cares, my brothers and sisters! Aren¡¯t you happy to exchange scrap metal for food? You don¡¯t see this often, but it¡¯s a good deal!] [Hahahaha, I agree with the comment above! Buy as much meat as you can! Spend all your gold coins on them!] [Perfect. I was just about to throw the gold coins away so that they wouldn¡¯t take up space in my warehouse. Now I¡¯m killing two birds with one stone!] [I¡¯m going to have some panther hotpot tonight, and nobody¡¯s going to stop me! Fuahahaha!] Facing the ridicule of all those castle lords, Su Hao did not mind one bit and merely smiled. Whether they viewed him as stupid or not, it was all but certain that his food would be sold off. After all, this was a world where survival of the fittest was difficult. A lord only cared about their own safety. No matter how outrageous the news of his transaction was, they would all think that his intelligence was wanting and no one would let go of the opportunity to take advantage of him. Sure enough, the result was just as Su Hao thought. All that food was snapped up in the three seconds after he posted the transaction on the [Trading Channel]. One unit was one pound, and now, a hundred pounds of food had all been snatched up! Those 100 pounds of panther meat had brought Su Hao a total of 500,000 gold coins! 500,000 gold coins was even enough to purchase his castle expansion blueprint after business mode started! Even Su Hao was surprised by how much money that group of lords had! ¡­ At the same time, the swarm of Holy Light Bug had already multiplied to over 40,000 in the darkness! They flew at low altitudes and were rapidly devouring everything in the darkness. Wherever it went, not even a blade of grass grew, even the turf was completely devoured. A large black mass of wild beasts fled in all directions after coming under attack, but alas, they were all swallowed by the Holy Light Bugs a few seconds. Countless Holy Light Bugs devoured, then multiplied, and repeated the process yet again! There was no end to the process, and the number was so dense that it was uncountable! Chapter 4 Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation Countless Holy Light Bugs were devouring the beasts in a frenzy. After nearly 50 Black Panthers were devoured, their bodies showed up in the castle. A sentence appeared in Su Hao¡¯s vision. [Monster corpse discovered. Would you like to collect it?] [Yes/No] ¡°Yes!¡± [Collection successful!] [You received 93 pounds of panther meat!] [You obtained 17 complete panther skins!] [You received 13 energy stones and 1 mutant crystal!] The castle upgrade requirement was 10 crystals and 1 mutant crystal. He had already met the upgrade requirements. Then, a line of words appeared in Su Hao¡¯s field of vision. [Congratulations, Lord! Upgrade conditions have been met!] [Do you want to upgrade the castle?] [Yes/No] ¡°Yes!¡± Su Hao didn¡¯t hesitate and immediately chose yes. [Upgrade successful!] [10 energy stones and 1 mutant crystal will be deducted.] [Energy stones Remaining: 3. Mutant crystals: 0] In an instant, a dazzling golden light enveloped their castle and disappeared a few seconds later. The castle that was originally a thatched cottage underwent a very obvious change! The roof that was originally made of thatch had now become a wooden pillar. Compared to before, the castle now had three floors. With the addition of the third floor, the third floor became a dining room, but it was only about 20 square meters. There was only a wooden square table and a simple pot inside. The second floor¡¯s area had also increased from 20 square meters to 30 square meters, and in the extra space was a one-meter-wide wooden bed. The warehouse on the first floor remained the same. It was still more than 10 square meters, with a storage area of about 100 cubic meters. The reborn Su Hao knew that increasing the warehouse¡¯s size would require his level as a lord to increase too. In order to raise his level from zero to one, he would need 1000 energy points. Su Hao¡¯s current energy value was 320. He was 680 points away from leveling up, which meant that he still needed some time. The words in front of him began to change. [Congratulations, your castle has been upgraded to a level 2 Castle! Range of influence increased to 500 meters!] [All resources within the territory belong to the castle lord!] [Any outside creatures who entered the castle¡¯s sphere of influence without permission will be automatically attacked and defended against by your troops and attacking structures.] [Castle¡¯s defense has been doubled!] [The castle¡¯s durability has been increased by three times!] [Your castle¡¯s influence and reputation in the Endless Continent has increased slightly!] [Current Level: Level 2 Castle] [Normal Buildings: Warehouse, Level 2 Castle.] [Level-Up Requirement: 30 energy stones, 2 mutant crystals] [Next Level: Level 3 Castle] He needed 30 energy stones and two mutant crystals to reach the next level, which was a challenging task for all lords. For Su Hao, however, the support of the Holy Light Bugs would only take him a few days to upgrade the castle to level three. As he pondered over that face, a new line of words popped up in his field of vision. [Congratulations, Lord!] [After the castle is upgraded to a level 2 Castle, the system will give you one lottery ticket!] [Additional Gift: a summoning altar!] [Summoning Altar: summon troops as and when you wish to return and battle!] [Would you like to build it?] [Yes/no] ¡°Yes.¡± Su Hao replied indifferently. He knew how the Summoning Altar functioned, and would give his orders to the troops on the altar when needed. After the order was given, all troops were under the lord¡¯s command. Regardless of their type, they would all receive the order instantly. There, they would return from the altar in the shortest time possible and begin putting everything into action! Soon after, a white light began shining! Su Hao suddenly closed his eyes. An ancient sandalwood altar stood in the middle of the castle, about 100 meters in front of it. It needed to be built before it could be used. At the same time, Su Hao walked to the first floor warehouse¡¯s roulette wheel and rotated it again! The wheel spun rapidly, and stopped at militia! [Congratulations! Reward: 50 militiamen!] [Do you want to use the Summoning Altar to summon?] [Yes/No] ¡°Yes!¡± Su Hao ordered. A wisp of white smoke floated out of the altar. WIthin seconds, militia members immediately crawled out of the altar! Each of them looked strong and muscular and stood about 1.8 meters tall. They wore cloth clothes and cloth shoes, without any armor or weapons. Then, the soldiers stood straight in front of Su Hao, knelt on one knee, and clenched their right fist on their left chest as they said in unison. ¡°Greetings, My Lord!¡± ¡°Mm.¡± Su Hao glanced indifferently at them. Every soldier was very strong, so their strength should come in very handy when building structures or protecting the castle. Due to the existence of the Holy Light Bugs, the militia did not need to be responsible for fighting like in his previous life. They only needed to be responsible for constructing buildings, gathering wood and ore, and various other jobs. Su Hao immediately divided them into groups and gave them orders. A portion of them stayed in the castle to guard, while the rest went out to collect wood and stone. Su Hao then said, ¡°Go forth.¡± ¡°Yes!¡± At the same time, all the other castle lords were scrolling through the [Regional Chat Channel] when they suddenly noticed a new regional announcement! [Regional Announcement: special update!] [Congratulations Lord No. 1209: Su Hao, your Castle has been upgraded to a Level 2 Castle!] When all the lords saw the message, their eyes widened in shock! All the lords had transmigrated to that era of feudal lords at the same time, and the upgrade of the castle required difficult-to-obtain energy stones and mutant crystals. Both of these could only be obtained by going out to fight wild beasts or by conquering the cities of other lords, and moreover, upgrading a castle from zero to one required 10 energy stones and one mutant crystal. One might be lucky enough to get the energy stone by killing ten wild beasts, but one might need to kill more than 100 wild beasts to get a mutant crystal. In fact, even if a lord managed to seize someone else¡¯s territory, they would not be able to obtain anything good from the current lords who were all at level zero. How then was Su Hao able to use only one day to obtain 10 energy stones and one mutant crystal? It would only mean that Su Hao was a near-invincible existence in the entire continent. For a time, the word Su Hao became a buzzword. Everyone expressed their shock in the [World Chat Channel], and everyone went into a frenzy. [The newbie Su Hao used one day to directly upgrade the castle? Is he insane?] [More importantly, almost all of the troops that a castle lord has are F-Grade, and even the most powerful ones are B-Grade at most. F-Grade troops are slow to develop right away, and if they can¡¯t even handle wild rabbits, how the hell can they get energy stones and mutant crystals? How are we expected to continue playing this game?] [How can there be such a huge difference between two people! This is terrifying!] [This is just one day! I¡¯m scared to even go out and collect wood. I¡¯m living in so much fear that I can¡¯t even get food, and someone else has already leveled up their castle??] [Goddamn! How could anyone possess that kind of strength? Hey, Su Hao, do you think you can teach a cute little girl like me a lesson?] [After verification, the commenter above is a stingy man!] Chapter 5 Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation When Su Hao saw all these comments, he lowered his gaze slightly and smiled faintly. Everything was exactly what he had expected. After his castle was upgraded and the [Regional Announcement] was made public, the location of his territory as well as his name would be exposed to the eyes of the lords. In the best case scenario, other lords would come to expand their territory. In the worst case scenario, the other lords would give him trouble. Whatever the outcome was, Su Hao could not care less. After all, he was no longer afraid of the other lords¡¯ sneak attacks and strategies. He knew that no one could defeat his Holy Light Bugs. As long as a lord came and attacked his territory, they would only be handing over their own bricks and tiles to his territory. He welcomed them highly, of course. At that point, he began opening his [Friend Messages]. Sure enough, just as he had expected, it did not take long for at least a million castle lords to add him as a friend. However, he rejected all of them. In his opinion, there was no need to add friends in the early stages of castle development. After all, no one acknowledged anyone as superior just yet. In a situation where resources were scarce, everyone was selfish and had thoughts only on plundering others. No one could be of genuine help to each other for the time being. They could always do so later when everyone¡¯s strengths were about the same and a conflict of interest arose. ¡­ As time passed, the thousands of Holy Light Bugs had multiplied to the tens of thousands! The next day, the castle¡¯s courtyard was filled with a large number of wild monster corpses. The harvest was several times more than the previous day! When Su Hao saw that, he believed that his bugs would soon have the ability to resist the invading darkness. As usual, Su Hao collected and butchered the corpses of monsters and beasts that had been collected since the previous day. In total, he obtained nearly 265 units of food, as well as various kinds of fur and fangs. As a level zero lord, his storage capacity was about 100 units. Thus, 265 units of food was a surplus for Su Hao. He kept 100 units of food for himself, and put the remaining 165 units of food on the [Trading Channel], like he did the previous day. The exchange price remained the same. [One unit of food for 5000 gold] [165 units of food available] This time, Su Hao added two more pieces of information, which surprised all the lords who saw the transaction information. They wondered why another person was about to exchange gold coins with them again that day. Could it be the idiot from the previous day? In an instant, the chat room descended into chaos as the lords all made their opinions known. [Hey, are you that idiot who exchanged food for gold coins yesterday? Tell us if you are, Big Shot!] [You¡¯re not an idiot, Mr. Big Shot! You¡¯re my guardian!] [Are you treating me like this because you know I don¡¯t have gold coins? My heart hurts!] [165 units of food now? This is crazy! What kind of troop does this Big Shot have that he¡¯d get so much food when it¡¯s only the second day?] [Absolutely terrifying! I haven¡¯t even managed to kill a wild beast, but someone else is already progressing so quickly?] Three seconds later, the outcome was just as Su Hao expected. All the food he had on offer was snatched up moments after they were posted on the [Trading Channel]! [Lost one unit of food, gained 5000 gold.] [Lost two units of food, gained 10,000 gold] ¡­ After the transaction, his 165 units of food had turned into a total of 825,000 gold coins. A few seconds later, the comments section immediately took a different direction. [Has the world gone crazy?!] [165 units of food were all snatched up in three seconds?] [Do people have eight hands or something? Or have they all mastered some instakill kind of ability?] [I¡¯m crying right now! I wouldn¡¯t have thrown the gold coins away if I knew earlier! I¡¯m done for!] [I haven¡¯t eaten anything all day! I¡¯m so hungry!] [I found some wild grass to eat¡­] [I¡¯ve already eaten all the wild grass available in my place!] [My troop type is a wild rabbit. They¡¯ll be killed by large wild beasts once I send them out, and it¡¯s a pain to develop them! I¡¯m starving to death here!] [F*ck! He can only post one comment a day, so he¡¯ll only release food once. If we want to find out whether there¡¯d be more tomorrow? We just have to sit and wait!] [Anyone who could obtain 165 units of food in such a short period of time would definitely have insanely strong troops!] ¡­ As night fell, the Blood Moon hung high in the sky. Countless monsters, magical beasts, and wild beasts were roaring in the dark corners of the world. More than two billion castle lords were trembling in the protection of their territory, as there was only one day left until the invasion of darkness that happened once every seven days. They had to think of a way to deal with it! At the same time, the announcement in the [World Chat Channel] had also changed. [The invasion of darkness that happens once every seven days is about to begin. Is everyone ready?] [Special Announcement: the invasion of darkness will begin in six days!] [After six days, the darkness will invade and the horde of beasts will come!] [Those who have successfully defended against the invasion of darkness and the monster horde will receive one lottery ticket!] Chapter 6 Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation The announcement in the world chat immediately caused all the lords to speak in anxiety and fear! [I don¡¯t want to die of hunger before the darkness invades the world.] [Oh, dear heavens! I wonder what I¡¯ll get, I¡¯m really looking forward to it!] [What¡¯s there to look forward to? Do you know what you¡¯ll encounter before you even get a chance at the lottery?] [People like us shouldn¡¯t hope for the lottery. Staying alive is already a good enough outcome.] [The one who has a chance of getting it should be that Big Shot who offered 300 units of food to trade, but I can never be sure who he or she is!] [Is it the one named Su Hao who upgraded his castle previously? He must have a top-tier troop class if he could level up so quickly!] [Not necessarily! There¡¯s two billion people here. What are the chances of that happening!] [Hey! Don¡¯t say something so disheartening. Although the top-tier troops are powerful, they still have to rely on tactics, will, and perseverance to resist the invasion of darkness and the beast horde¡­] [Just stop lying to yourself, will you?] ¡­ Su Hao smiled faintly when he saw that. What other people thought of him was none of his concern. He had always been clear about his goal¡ªto become stronger. Be it fame or strength, he wanted both. He wanted to be strong enough to resist the Eternal Night, and strong enough to save the entire human race from destruction! Then, he lowered his eyes and looked around the castle. There was a chill in the fog, a bloody stench in the darkness, and the endless sounds of wild beasts in the night. The territory was filled with danger from all directions. Moreover, there were still six days before the darkness invasion. In the past six days, the Holy Light Bugs had grown stronger outside, but the castle had temporarily lost its protection. At present, there were only 50 militiamen in the entire castle. However, they did not have any armor or weapons. They might all be strong, but they lacked the ability to protect the castle. Furthermore, there was not a single arrow tower in his castle. Su Hao needed to be prepared for every eventuality, regardless of whether it was a wild beast invasion or an invasion by the other lords. The priority was to build two arrow towers in advance to protect his castle. However, there were only ten stacks of wood and stone in the warehouse, and there was only one ton of coal. An arrow tower would require 200 stacks of wood and stone, 2 tons of coal, and 50 stacks of iron. Su Hao, who had experienced the darkness invasion in his previous life, understood the horror of the darkness invasion. Even though he now had the SS-Class holy light bugs as his main force, he could not do anything to protect it. The only prerequisite to safety was two arrow towers. On the other hand, a level one arrow tower could fire one arrow per second. However, a level two or level three arrow tower could shoot up to two or three arrows per second as its level increased. Furthermore, the arrows that were shot out also dealt higher damage. Therefore, instead of using the resources to build more level one arrow towers, it was better to build two and use the resources to level up later. With that in mind, he decided to trade the food the Holy Light bugs had caught for some of these materials. Then, he would wait for his militia to bring back wood and other resources before assessing his situation. At the same time, the power of the 10,000 Holy Light Bugs was still growing in the darkness! They were constantly multiplying and devouring! The corpses of the wild beasts appeared in the castle one by one, and he also gathered the energy and rewards bit by bit. Su Hao took a look at his own energy value on the panel. After more than a day, the tens of thousands of Holy Light Bugs had grown several times stronger, and the number of wild beasts they had killed had also increased! Dozens turned into the hundreds, and hundreds turned into the thousands! However, in just over a day¡¯s time, Su Hao¡¯s energy value had increased to 957! It was insane! The last time around, Su Hao¡¯s energy value was only 320, yet it had increased by almost three times in just one night! He was only shy of 43 energy points from the upgrade requirements. He knew that he was going to level up any moment now with the exponential growth rate of his energy points. As expected, he received a message the next second! [Congratulations, you¡¯ve obtained 53 points of energy, bringing your points to 1100 points in total. You¡¯ve met the 1000-points condition for the upgrade!] [Lord Level: Level One] Then, a golden light suddenly appeared on Su Hao¡¯s body. Su Hao suddenly felt a powerful energy moving within his body. He felt that his strength had increased several times in an instant, and his physical fitness had also become stronger. When the golden light dissipated, his level had also increased from zero to one. Then, another sentence appeared in Su Hao¡¯s vision. [After being promoted to level one Lord, you have the right to name your castle. Please name your castle.] Su Hao did not have to ponder much over it. Since his troop type was that of the Holy Light Bug, his castle would also take after that name. He replied indifferently, ¡°Holy Light Castle.¡± [Congratulations, you¡¯ve successfully named your castle!] [The Holy Light Castle is born! His reputation has greatly increased! [Warehouse has been expanded. Capacity increased to 300 units!] [Troops¡¯ movement speed and summoning speed will be doubled!] Su Hao looked indifferently at the words on the panel and made a simple analysis. The expansion of the warehouse was indeed very beneficial to him, because he still had to trade many physical resources. He was also planning to collect meat, skin, teeth, and other parts from wild beasts. He needed to use the warehouse for storage, so the expansion of the warehouse boded very well for his convenience. The movement speed and summoning speed were also helpful to him. Even though the Holy Light bugs were fast, the benefit of his added help was obvious to all. It used to take 10 minutes to summon the Holy Light Bugs, but that time had decreased to five minutes. If he was at risk of danger in the castle and could not protect himself in a short span of time, he could easily summon them back in the shortest time possible to thwart any danger to his life. In short, becoming a level one lord brought only benefits. Su Hao thought it was all over, but was caught by surprise when he saw the image of a gift pack on the virtual template! [Upgrade conditions have met the gift pack¡¯s requirements!] [Mythical gift pack: 600,000 top-up] [The gift pack contains: Wood x 2000 stacks, Stone x 2000 stacks, Iron x 500 stacks, Coal x 20 tons, and one Holy Healing Spring.] [Would you like to purchase?] [Yes/No] ¡°Yes!¡± Su Hao answered immediately as his eyes lit up. Although the gift pack cost him almost all his gold coins, he felt that it was worth it. In terms of the amount of wood, stone, and iron, those resources were enough for him to upgrade his arrow tower! However, Su Hao was happiest to receive a Holy Healing Spring in the gift pack! In his previous life, the Holy Healing Spring, which could only be exchanged for 1000 energy stones and 10 mutant crystals, had now appeared directly in the gift bag. For the record, the healing power of the Holy Healing Spring was something that no other medicine could hope to compare to! Besides, there was no guarantee that one out of 100,000 lords would be able to accumulate 1000 energy stones and 10 mutant crystals. It was extremely difficult. However, the SSS pay-to-win talent allowed him to get it by simply making payment. For Su Hao, this saved him a lot of trouble. The Holy Healing Spring was a spring formed naturally by heaven and earth. The spring water gave off a delicate fragrance that could regrow skin and bones, replenish blood, and fight off all kinds of diseases! With it, if his summoned creatures were injured in the battle against the invasion of darkness, it could always come back to get its injuries healed! His militia benefited from it as well! They would be able to recover as long as they drank the Holy Healing Spring¡¯s water! However, there was only one restriction¡ªif any of his troops or militia died, they could not be saved. Thus, Su Hao¡¯s possession of the Holy Healing Spring meant that his troops and militia would be able to recover from their injuries¡ªno matter how serious¡ªas long as they were still alive and breathing! Chapter 7 Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation [Purchase successful!] [600,000 gold coins were spent.] [Remaining gold coins: 255,000 gold coins] The moment the text disappeared from Su Hao¡¯s vision, the warehouse of the Holy Light Castle had grown twice as large as before. The beast¡¯s fur and meat, which had been piled up like a mountain, now looked spacious due to the increase in space. However, it was only temporary. The next second, 2000 units of wood, 2000 units of stone, 500 units of iron, and 20 tons of coal immediately appeared on the shelves of the warehouse. The sparse storage unit a second ago was filled to the brim in an instant. Su Hao walked in and saw that there was almost no gap on the shelves on the four walls. Even the ground was filled with all those items. Then, the militia leader¡¯s voice came from outside the door! ¡°My Lord! We went out to collect wood and got a total of 10 stacks! But a third of the militia were injured! They¡¯re all waiting outside for you!¡± He said piously as knelt down on one knee, placed his right fist on the left side of his chest, and looked up in shock. Su Hao stood with his hands behind his back. He turned around and said faintly, ¡°Understood.¡± It seemed that his militia¡¯s combat ability was rather weak indeed. Even if they were strong, they might not be a match for the fierce beasts outside. In that case, it would be better to leave the militia in the castle and have them be responsible for construction, while the Holy Light Bugs could then be in charge of combat. That could then be a decent strategy to minimize the injury rate. Su Hao then said to the militia, ¡°Those who are injured can bandage up your wounds and wait for the Holy Healing Spring to be built. As for the others, start building the Holy Healing Spring and the two arrow towers!¡± ¡°Yes, My Lord!¡± The militia shouted in a sonorous and powerful voice. The militia started work immediately. Su Hao built the Holy Healing Spring at a location about 500 meters in front of the Holy Light Castle. More than 20 militiamen were holding hoes and materials for building the Holy Healing Spring. They were sweating profusely as they worked hard and dug the soil. Su Hao was resting in the room on the second floor, but within 20 minutes, he heard the leader coming to report! ¡°My Lord! The Holy Healing Spring and the two arrow towers are ready! How else can we be in service?¡± Su Hao opened his eyes and looked outside. His eyes lit up instantly, and he saw a circular pool that occupied an area of about 30 square meters. In the middle of the pool were several waves of clear, blue water. The water was none other than the water of the Holy Healing Spring that seeped out from the ground. The only way to obtain them was through special underground construction. The round rock wall was paved with smooth white tiles with a few bright, colorful gemstones embedded in them. Su Hao was rather pleased. His militia were all strong men, and although they were not good at dealing with wild beasts, their construction ability was unexpectedly strong. In just 20 minutes, a gorgeous yet simple Holy Healing Spring had been built. On the other side, the two arrow towers Su Hao ordered to be built were present at two corners in front of the castle. They were less than five meters away from the surrounding wall. Their goal was to attack the beasts and other forces from the outside at a closer distance! He saw that the arrow tower was about five meters tall, and the top floor was a tower that automatically fired arrows. Their current level was at one, and their damage was only 10 HP. On the other hand, a level one Black Panther had around 500 HP, which meant that a level one arrow tower would need 50 seconds to fire 50 arrows to kill a Black Panther. Therefore, the strength of a level one arrow tower was far from enough. He had to continue upgrading it! With that in mind, he glanced at the militia outside the door and gave his orders. ¡°Get the injured militiamen to draw water from the Holy Healing Spring and drink it. Let the uninjured ones continue upgrading the arrow tower!¡± ¡°Yes, My Lord!¡± The leader of his militia immediately responded. At the same time, the appearance of the Holy healing spring added a different feel to his originally empty territory. Then, Su Hao took a look at his personal information. [Castle Lord: Su Hao] [Castle Name: Holy Light Castle] [Strength: Level one] [Castle Level: Level 2 Castle] [Castle Troop Type: Holy Light Bug (unique troop type)] [Castle Building: Summoning Altar x 1, Holy Healing Spring x 1, Level 1 Arrow Towers x 2.] [Gold Coins: 255000 gold coins] [Energy Stones: 3] [Mutant Crystals: 0] After glancing through his information, Su Hao thought that it was about time that the Holy Light Bugs would have a harvest that day. As expected, many more corpses of wild beasts appeared in front of the castle a few seconds later. Su Hao collected them one by one. In total, he collected 205 units of meat, 35 furs, 16 energy stones, and 2 mutant crystals. The total amount of resources in the warehouse was as follows¡ªin addition to the 100 units of meat that had not been sold, he now had a total of 305 units of meat, and in addition to the 13 furs from before, he now had a total of 48 furs. Finally, he had 19 energy stones and two mutant crystals. ¡­ At that point, it was not just the corpses of the beasts that returned, there were also thousands of injured Holy Light Bugs! He saw the militia filling up the Holy Healing Spring with water in wooden buckets! A golden light suddenly exploded! The militia was so frightened that they took a step back. Then, he saw a cluster of golden Holy Light Bugs shuttling back and forth in the darkness! Their formation was so terrifying that it seemed as if the entire sky above the castle was shrouded in this golden light. In the next second, thousands of injured Holy Light Bugs landed in the Holy Spring Water! Speckles of starlight flickered in the clear blue lake. Such was the power of the Holy Healing Spring. Its divine power had some connection with the soldiers. With the appearance of the Holy Healing Spring, thousands of injured Holy Light Bugs had already flown back to heal their injuries without waiting for Su Hao to summon them. Su Hao lowered his gaze slightly as he looked quietly at the Holy Light Bugs in the Holy Healing Spring. A few thousand densely packed, glowing Holy Light Bugs filled up the 30-square-meter Holy Healing Spring. The Holy Light bug, which was originally only 3cm in size, had almost doubled in size, reaching a whopping 6cm! Furthermore, the shell on the back of the Holy Light Bugs were also tougher, its wings were larger, and its six feelers were even thicker. Seeing this, Su Hao had a general idea of how many Holy Light Bugs there were¡ªcurrently, the number of Holy Light Bugs outside have reached at least tens of thousands! After all, the number of Holy Light Bugs that had returned had reached a few thousand, and each one had become stronger and larger. That meant that the Holy Light Bugs outside would only be stronger and larger in scale. There was even the possibility that the Holy Light Bugs which had stronger resistance to injuries could grow into bug kings. Upon seeing that, Su Hao could already imagine what would happen if the invasion of darkness finally came. His Holy Light Bug troop would be invincible! Chapter 8 Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation At the same time, the [World Chat Channel] was filled with messages. [What did everyone eat tonight?] [I bought the panther meat from that big boss, but I only had enough gold coins to buy one unit. Can¡¯t fill my stomach at all!] [I don¡¯t even have one unit! And I don¡¯t even have gold coins! It was difficult for me to get a militiaman, so I gave him a simplest mission: I sent him out to gather wood but he ran away! I¡¯m so angry!] [My situation is the same as yours! But I¡¯m worse off than you. Not only did my militia run away, but even the Wild Leopard troops that I¡¯ve painstakingly cultivated have run away. Their loyalty is trash to the point of vomiting blood! I wasted so many of my resources for nothing!] [That¡¯s crazy! How are we going to defend against the invasion of darkness?] [Please teach us, Big Shot! One unit of food is already an extravagant demand, how did you do it, so much food!] [Who¡¯s this Big Shot? Can you tell me your name?¡± [Wait a minute! Don¡¯t just start cheering! Isn¡¯t it about time for the Big Shot to trade food again? I¡¯ve already prepared all the gold coins in advance. Nobody fight with me!] [That¡¯s the Big Shot for you. We¡¯re so grateful he¡¯s exchanging food for gold coins!] [Is there a possibility that the Big Shot is giving us food in this manner because he¡¯s afraid we¡¯d go hungry? What a good person! I¡¯m crying!] ¡­ Su Hao¡¯s behavior of exchanging food for gold coins was becoming more well-known among the people in the area. It was about nine in the morning, and Su Hao would put his food on the shelf at ten in the morning. There was still an hour to go. Su Hao had yet to wake up. However, there were already many castle lords waiting in the [World Chat Channel] and [Trading Channel]. [I¡¯ve already prepared gold coins! Don¡¯t try and fight me for the meat!] [So what? My finger speed is definitely faster than yours!] [Really, guys? Isn¡¯t it only 9am now? Do you have to come so early?] [But aren¡¯t you here early too?] [Sorry, but I¡¯ve been waiting for two hours, and I¡¯m so hungry I can¡¯t sleep. To tell you the truth, I didn¡¯t believe that the Big Shot would have so much food for the next two times. I thought it was fake too, and I didn¡¯t expect everyone to use gold coins to exchange for food. Since gold coins are useless, I definitely won¡¯t pass on a good deal!] [The panther meat hotpot was really delicious, but it was gone before I had my fill. I want another 10 units today! Come on out, Big Shot!] ¡­ Su Hao finally woke up. He smirked faintly when he saw the contents of the chat. Just as he had expected, the requests for food have increased greatly. Moreover, many people were already waiting for him because they wanted to buy food. Supply drives demand, as the saying went. When the demand was greater than everything else, it was time to increase the price. After all, there was a demand but no supply, and anyone who did not want to go hungry would have to spend anything to buy it. Su Hao would definitely be able to earn a lot more that day. He took out the 254 units of meat in the warehouse and sold it. The remaining 55 units of meat was enough for him and his 50 militiamen. [One unit of meat for 10,000 gold coins!] [Total 254 units available] He put all the food on the [Trading Channel] as soon as the clock struck 10. All of a sudden, the lords who had collected all those gold coins and waited for Su Hao had just started rejoicing when they were dumbfounded but what they read! 5000 gold coins for a unit of food was already outrageous and expensive, and a price increase of a few more gold coins would still be considered a reasonable price. However, the price had almost doubled to 10,000 gold coins! What else could that be except extortion? Even if they knew that the gold coins were useless, they could at least use it to exchange for food from Su Hao. They were originally able to exchange two units of meat for the same price, but it had since dwindled to only one unit! The lord, who originally thought he could eat an extra unit today, could only eat one unit like before! For a time, all of them were cursing Su Hao like crazy in the chat room! [Hey! You¡¯re taking advantage of the situation to hike the price, aren¡¯t you! Even if the gold coins are useless, you can¡¯t just quote such a price to us!] [That¡¯s right! No matter how much gold I have, I can¡¯t just spend it like that!] [Boycott these extortionist price hikes! One unit of food can be exchanged for at most 5000 gold coins!] [I won¡¯t buy it even if I starve to death!] Su Hao did not care about their comments at all, because he knew that his food would be sold out. Even if a castle lord could hang in there and not eat, the troops and militia under his command needed to eat. If any member of the militia was left hungry, it would affect their fighting strength and also its loyalty. Once the loyalty of the troop class dropped below 50 points, the loyalty of the troop would be reduced by 10%. There might even be betrayal. The reason why many of the castle lords¡¯ soldiers had fled was simple. Their loyalty was not 100 to begin with, and they were not even given adequate food. How could anyone expect them to just sit there and starve to death? Su Hao was not at all worried that his food could not be sold. As expected, it did not take long. The 250 units of food that he had put on for sale were all snatched up! The castle lords, who had just purchased the food, could feel an ache in their hearts! It was a simultaneous feeling of agony and happiness. Even though the gold coins were useless, it still hurt! After all, they knew that they were being exploited by that big shot! At the same time, Su Hao¡¯s act of exchanging food for gold coins began to spread around. It was not only the lords in his region who knew about it¡ªit even attracted the attention of people in other regions. In the comments section, there were a lot of angry words that scolded Su Hao for being a profiteer, but a new and different set of comments were like a different set of fresh air. [I¡¯ve been observing him for three days. He¡¯s the only one who asks for gold coins in exchange for food.] [Hey Big Shot, can you tell me what the use of gold coins?] [Yeah! Can we make iron from gold coins?] [I don¡¯t think it can be used to cast iron, since it requires an iron furnace. I initially thought he was a gold coin collector, but now I believe he isn¡¯t! The gold coins must have some special use.] At the same time, on a large plain extremely far away from Su Hao¡¯s territory, a beautiful woman with an excellent figure was riding on the back of a White unicorn. Not far behind her, there were several unicorns hunting in the wild cattle area. This woman¡¯s name was Qin Shuang. She knew that Su Hao had been exchanging a large amount of food for gold coins for three days, and if he could have so much food, then he must be extraordinarily capable! She felt that she could make him a friend, or even an ally. With them helping each other, they could become the leaders of this Endless Continent together! Thinking of this, she raised her eyebrows and looked at the message in the [World Caht Channel]. ¡°Interesting!¡± ¡°Let¡¯s be friends.¡± Immediately, she opened Su Hao¡¯s private chat box and sent a message to add him as a friend. [Hey, why did you use gold coins to exchange for food?] [Sent successfully, read] [I know you¡¯re definitely not what they say you are.] [Sent successfully, read] [My name is Qin Shuang. Let¡¯s be friends?] [Message failed (red exclamation mark!)] ¡°Did he just reject my friend request, block me, and delete me?¡± Qin Shuang was somewhat stunned. Chapter 9 Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation At the same time, several militiamen placed roasted meat and dew from the Holy Healing Spring on the third-floor wooden table. Su Hao walked up and prepared to eat. The militiamen did not dare to delay a second longer and nodded before hurrying downstairs to continue the construction. By that point, the Holy Light Bugs would frequently come back to his territory with food for the militia. The castle that was originally a thatched cottage now had an obvious ¡®production line¡¯. The Holy Light Bugs hunted for food outside and brought them back for the militia, while the militia¡¯s loyalty was maintained at a good level and they were actively building. Sturdy buildings could protect the castle and their castle lord better. On the other hand, Su Hao could also exchange food for gold coins. When the business mode started, he could purchase even more resources. A set of good development routes was clearly not available on the entire continent at present. The castle lords within that area were probably unable to pass the first production line mission¡ªsending their troops out to hunt. The non-completion led to the lack of progress and development, because the endless continent was a foreign world that was even larger than earth. Every citizen would first have their own territory, and in the darkness outside the territory were countless monsters and magical beasts. At the same time, there was also the inevitable Eternal Night! Furthermore, the castle lords had all sorts of random types of troops. There were humans, dwarves, elves, dragons¡­ There were also half-beasts, spirits, half-dragons¡­ However, most of the castle lords were randomly assigned mid- to low-level troops. Only a small number of lucky castle lords were randomly assigned to high-level, top-level troops. For example, Qin Shuang¡¯s White Unicorn was an A-Grade troop. As for Su Hao¡¯s Holy Light Bugs, they could be considered as SSS-Grade! Even though the Holy Light Bugs were an SS-Grade troop type, they were the only one of their troop type and no one on the entire continent had them! The SS-Grade Holy Light Bugs, had the ability to divide and devour without limit. They also had the buff of ¡®uniqueness¡¯. They had the ability to surpass God-level soldiers, which meant they were SSS-level soldiers! Their existence surpassed all the ordinary troops on the entire continent! Out of the two billion castle lords in existence, he was the only one who could own an SS-Grade Holy Light Bug! One could imagine that his ability at that time was something that no one in the entire continent could surpass! He knew that when he saw all the messages in his [Friend Messages]. He discovered that the remark in the chat box at the top was: [White Unicorn] That was an A-Grade troop. Curious, he clicked on it and found that it was another boring topic¡ªhe was asked why he stored all those gold coins, so he decided to just exit the chat. Furthermore, he did not have the patience to look at the chat box below, so he rejected all the friend requests at once and deleted them. After all, to him, there was no need to make any friends in the early stages of development. When other lords approached them in the early stages, it was obvious that they were doing it for the sake of benefits, making it impossible to tell whether they were an enemy or a friend. He had already finished his lunch, so he stood up and walked out of the castle. He saw that the two arrow towers standing in the far end in front of his castle were obviously much stronger than before. The arrow tower, which had been firing one arrow per second earlier, was now firing more. His militia¡¯s building ability was very strong indeed. In just one morning, the two arrow towers in front of the castle had been upgraded to level two. About 503 stacks of wood and other resources had been used. Originally, the arrow could only fire once per second and each arrow only dealt 10 HP. On the other hand, the level two arrow tower could fire two arrows in a second, and the damage of each arrow had already increased to 20 HP. A wild beast with 500 HP would require 50 seconds of attack from the arrow tower, but for the same 500 HP beast, the level two tower could fire two arrows at once, and each arrow¡¯s attack power would be twice the original. If it shot two arrows at once, it would be four times the original. Therefore, he only needed 12.5 seconds to kill a beast with 500 HP. His combat strength had increased by four times! If a level two arrow tower was already quite strong, one could already imagine how strong a higher-level tower was. Upon seeing that, Su Hao felt even more confident to face the invading darkness in a few days. In addition, he projected that his castle would be upgraded in the next two days. He immediately opened his personal information to check the current situation. [Holy Light Castle: Level 2] [Energy stones: 19] [Mutant crystals: 2] [To upgrade to level three, 30 energy stones and 2 mutant crystals are required.] He was only short of 11 energy stones. And according to the Holy Light Bug¡¯s combat ability, 11 energy stones would only take a day at most. When he thought of that, he walked to the Holy Light Spring to take a look. At that moment, thousands of Holy Light Bugs were already healed. Once healed, they would fly back into the darkness automatically. A golden light flashed in the darkness, and the Holy Light Bugs soon disappeared. ¡­ The next day, Su Hao woke up to collect the corpses of wild beasts as usual. The number of wild beast corpses outside the castle was increasing day by day! He had collected 413 units of meat, 41 pieces of fur, 16 energy stones, and 0 mutant crystals. Everything was just as he had expected, and it would only take a day at most to level up. The next second, a message popped up in su Hao¡¯s vision! [35 energy stones and 2 mutant crystals have been accumulated.] [You¡¯ve met the upgrade requirements. 30 energy stones, 2 mutant crystals.] [Do you want to upgrade the castle?] [Yes/No] ¡°Yes.¡± Su Hao replied. [Upgrade successful!] [5 energy stones and 0 mutant crystals left.] [Current Castle Level: Level 3] [To upgrade to Level 4, 50 energy stones and 4 mutant crystals are required!] Then, a red light flickered. Su Hao saw that the wooden castle in front of him had now turned into red diamonds. The roof and the walls were all made of red bricks. The height and the other furnishings were the same. The only difference was that the wooden stakes had been turned into stone bricks, and the castle had become a little sturdier. Upon seeing that, Su Hao read the last line and understood that the castle¡¯s level-ups were getting harder and harder. However, he was not worried because the Holy Light Bugs¡¯ development speed would definitely be much quicker than the increase in the difficulty of upgrading the castle. At that moment! Nearly 10,000 holy light bugs suddenly fell from the sky! They hurriedly flapped their broken wings, let out a bitter cry, and immediately flew into the Holy Healing Spring! At the sight of that, Su Hao¡¯s eyes drooped and a trace of coldness flashed within his expression! The situation was looking bad. More and more Holy Light Bugs were getting injured. Only a few thousand of them were injured the last time around, but that number had increased to more than 10,000! Chapter 10 Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation Tens thousand over Holy Light Bugs dived into the water. They had grown a few centimeters in size within the span of just a few days. It seemed as though they had grown a lot from being a larva and were almost reaching maturity. However, some of their wings were clearly broken, and the light on their backs was rather dim. It seemed that no matter how strong they were in a group battle, they were still suffering greater and stronger injuries outside. If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that the Holy Light Bugs had the ability to divide and devour limitlessly,they probably could not hold on for much longer. The 30-square-meter Holy Healing Spring before Su Hao was unable to hold more than 10,000 holy light bugs. Such a situation was indeed beyond Su Hao¡¯s expectation, but then again, it was also rather reasonable. The power in the dark fog was unknown and terrifying to begin with, and he did not know the true power of the forces they had encountered outside. However, the objective situation was already in front of him, and Su Hao was well aware that he had to speed up the evolution of the Holy Light Bugs. Speeding up the growth of the Holy Light Bugs would help them increase their ability to resist wild beasts, thus reducing the number of injured Holy Light Bugs. The reborn Su Hao knew that there was a resource that could help speed up the evolution of the Holy Light Bugs. The evolution stone. The Holy Light Bugs had been killing wild beasts outside but did not manage to get any evolution stones. After all, it was not something that could be obtained by killing wild beasts. In his previous life, Su Hao obtained the evolution stone by accident from someone else. Evolution stones were so rare that most people did not even have a chance to see one. Rare items naturally had stronger effects, and once an evolution stone was fed to a Holy Light Bug, the entire swarm would receive the benefits¡ªmeaning that all of them would develop together! Such was the power of the evolution stone! At the moment, the fastest way to obtain evolution stones was to trade in the [Trading Channel]. Since neither Su Hao nor his swarm of bugs obtained an evolution stone, he would have to see if anyone else had one. After all, what if one of the two billion lords had an evolution stone? If there was, they would surely be willing to exchange a large amount of food for it. Su Hao took out the 413 units of meat he had just collected, and put up 353 of those units on the [Trading Channel]. [One unit of food for 10,000 gold coins] [100 units of food for one evolution stone.] [353 units of food in total.] As soon as the transaction information was announced, the chat spiraled into chaos. They were already used to Su Hao¡¯s sky-high price. They still bought the meat even as they complained, but they knew that they could not change anything. After all, they would not have to suffer if they had the ability to go out and hunt for food. Su Hao knew that his food would still be sold out, but what he did not expect was that all 353 units of food were sold in exchange for gold coins! He did not get the evolution stone! No one even knew what an evolution stone was, as they had never even seen one before. Food was all they wanted. No one noticed that Su Hao was looking to exchange the food for something else. At the same time on a distant plain, Qin Shuang traveled the plain on her unicorn in the dark, traveling on the plain. All of a sudden, a deafening roar came from the distance! Qin Shuang had sent out a few White Unicorns that ran in groups and chased after the Wild Cows like crazy. Soon, they each had a Wild Cow in their mouths! Her beautiful eyes lit up slightly when she saw that! ¡°It¡¯s the Wild Cow boss from yesterday!¡± ¡°A level three elite beast!¡± She had a total of five White Unicorns. The one she was riding on was level three, while the others were level two! She collected the corpses of the Wild Cows one by one. In the end, he obtained 23 units of beef, 11 pairs of bull¡¯s horns, 1 energy stone, and 1 evolution stone. Her eyes lit up when she saw the evolution stone, which was about 20 centimeters wide and more than 10 centimeters tall. It was black and gray in color, like an ore. The stones glowed under the stars, and the entire surface of contact was uneven. She knew that the use of the evolution stone was for her troops. After eating them, the soldiers would then grow together. As long as she ground it into powder and fed it to one of her white horses, the rest of her white horses would also level up. This was a combined effect unique only to evolution stones. However, the evolution stone was something of a luxury for her. Had she been in possession of tens of thousands, tens of millions, or even hundreds of millions of troops, feeding them the evolution stone would turn them invincible. However, all she had were five unicorns, and it would be a waste of the rare stone if she fed it to them. Then, she put away the evolution stone, planning to use it in the future or exchange it for something more useful. Thinking of this, she decided to open the [World Chat Channel] to have a look. As soon as she opened it, she saw Su Hao¡¯s transaction message and the comments from the other lords. [No way. I only realized it after snatching the food. Did the Big Shot just send another exchange message?¡± [Yes! I just checked the chat history again and saw that the big boss was actually willing to use 100 units of food to exchange for the evolution stone!] [May I ask what kind of high-level thingy an evolution stone is? If I have it, I¡¯ll definitely xchange it!] [You and I both! I don¡¯t know what it is either, and I¡¯ve never seen something like that before!] Seeing this, Qin Shuang flipped to the top of the transaction information. [100 units of food in exchange for 1 evolution stone] Her eyes lit up. She was overjoyed, not because 100 units of food could be exchanged for an evolution stone, but because the message was posted by Su Hao. She had wanted to befriend Su Hao the last time around but was rejected. Although she was disappointed, she comforted herself by saying that he probably deleted all the chats he received from other people in one go. In all honesty, she genuinely wanted to befriend Su Hao, as she believed that he had a troop type that was beyond Grade A. He was similar to her in the sense that both were qualified to stand at the top of the continent¡¯s food chain. A person like him was worth befriending, winning over, and forming an alliance with. She was already a little disappointed that he had rejected her the last time, since her Grade A troop type was not that bad to begin with. She could totally form an alliance with Su Hao and develop with him! Although she had only five unicorns, they all formed a top-tier troop! Su Hao needed an evolution stone, and judging from what was happening in the chat, she was probably the only individual who had one. When she saw that, the corners of her mouth curled up into a smile and she said lightly, ¡°The time has come. I¡¯ll definitely make sure I succeed in adding you as a friend! It¡¯ll be your turn to beg me.¡± She immediately typed a few simple words in the comment section. [I have an evolution stone. Add me as a friend if you want it.] Chapter 11 Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation Su Hao felt a headache coming almost instantly. After all, the evolution stone was very important to him at that stage. If he could reduce the number of casualties of the Holy Light Bugs in the shortest time possible and double the speed of their growth, then he would be able to eliminate all enemies when the invading darkness comes a few days. However, all 353 units of food had been exchanged for gold coins, and Su Hao did not know whether to laugh or cry. At this moment, a comment flashed in the chat. ¡°I have an evolution stone. Add me as a friend if you want it.¡± The comment immediately caused a wave of discussion in the chat. [Whoa? That¡¯s bold of you to ask the Big Shot to add you!] [Yeah, I¡¯ve added him so many times, but I was blocked and deleted almost every time. I decided to change accounts and continue adding him, but the result is the same.] [I know, right. Even a cute girl is finding it hard to be friends with a Big Shot! Hmph!] [After verification, the commenter above is a stingy man!] ¡­ Su Hao narrowed his eyes at the comment that attracted his attention. He then clicked on the chat box. The panel in front of Su Hao¡¯s vision instantly switched to the private chat box. Had he not clicked on it, he would never have realized that he had blacklisted and deleted the other party before. The other party¡¯s personal information was as follows: [Name: Qin Shuang] [Troop Type: White Unicorn (Grade-A troop type)] [Gender: female] Their chat ended at Qin Shuang¡¯s last sentence. [Hey, why did you use gold coins to exchange for food?] [I know you¡¯re definitely not what they say you are.] When Su Hao read that, he thought that she was just like the others who had nothing to offer her, hence his disinterest in dealing with her. At the same time, Qin Shuang was sitting quietly on the plains while staring a little dejectedly at the panel. ¡®Why isn¡¯t he adding me?¡¯ She had already made the offer to him. Someone of her temper would definitely not take the initiative to add someone who had blocked her before. Such was her principle. The next second, she sent another message to him. [Do you want it? I¡¯ll sell it to someone else if you don¡¯t.] Upon seeing that, Su Hao lowered his eyes, opened her chat and sent her a friend request. As a man, he had no choice but to yield to her. Adding her as a friend was a necessity in order for the Holy Light Bugs to evolve. [Ding!] [ __ has added you as a friend. Do you wish to accept?] Qin Shuang, who had been staring at the screen, curled her lips as soon as she saw that. [You took the bait in the end. I¡¯m definitely going to make you an ally.] Then, she opened Su Hao¡¯s personal information panel and saw: [Name: none] [Troop type: none] [Gender: male] Qin Shuang was speechless when she saw this. Was that the big shot everyone spoke of? No information could be seen other than his gender. He did not even have an avatar. Who was he really? She, on the other hand, had even taken the initiative to update her personal information and even uploaded her photo for her profile picture. That comparison made her seem like she was the desperate one¡­ She immediately clicked [Yes]. [Addition successful!] [Congratulations on becoming friends with __. ] After accepting his request, Qin Shuang was rather proud of herself and spoke first. [What¡¯s your name?] Over on the other end, Su Hao frowned slightly after receiving the message. He did not enjoy people getting to know him and asking about him through transactions, nor did he like developing allies in the early stages of the castle building. Moreover, whether or not the person was a friend or enemy was yet to be known. He then skipped the topic and went straight to the point. [Is 100 units of food enough?] Qin Shuang was speechless when she received the message. That big shot actually skipped her question and went directly to his main question. ¡®Didn¡¯t you see my profile picture and personal information? I¡¯m Qin Shuang! I have a Grade-A troop type!¡¯ Many people begged to add her as a friend, and the great majority were all handsome and capable lords. One of them¡ªa castle lord whose top-tier troop type was a Golden Lion King¡ªhad taken the initiative to add her and even pursued her. He sent private messages to her all the time, asking if she had eaten, how old she was, what she liked, and what her hobbies were. All his questions were centered around her. Remarkably, Su Hao was different from all the men she had ever met, and he did not seem the least bit interested in her at all! How was that even possible?! She could not help but feel a wave in her heart as she replied. [Yes, but I don¡¯t want food.] [What do you want?] She wanted information. Although she did not know why Su Hao wanted to accumulate gold coins, she had a feeling that there was something behind his actions. A lord who knew the use of evolution stones and wanted to buy them would not be the idiot that everyone pegged him to be. There had to be some knowledge that she did not know about! That was one of the reasons why she wanted to be an ally with Su Hao. [I don¡¯t want materials or food. I just want information] Su hao had an indifferent expression when he read the information. Her disinterest in food or materials could only mean one thing¡ªshe must have been someone who could survive on her own and capture wild beasts for food. In that case, her strength would have been quite impressive. In addition, she also had an Grade-A troop type in a White Unicorn. Qin Shuang seemed to be a force to be reckoned with, and it was not entirely impossible for her to possess evolution stones. He immediately asked her: [What do you want?] Qin Shuang received the message and finally asked the question that she had been wanting to ask for a long time but had yet to figure out the answer to. [Why are you accumulating gold coins? I only want information! If I get it, I can even give you the evolution stone without having to exchange for food!] [Are you sure?] [I¡¯m sure.] Su Hao frowned when he received the message. Qin Shuang did not seem to have contacted him for fun. She appeared rather sincere. No one could exchange resources for information unless they were smart. If any ordinary person asked him why he was hoarding gold coins, they probably did so to mock him for being a buffoon. However, Qin Shuang¡¯s question suggested that she had an inkling of the possible value of gold coins. That was why she was willing to use precious evolution stones in exchange for thatinformation. Su Hao felt the same too, and he realized that Qin Shuang seemed to understand him. However, it was precisely because she understood him that he had to take extra precautions. No one else should know about the gold coin. After all, business mode would be open in another two months. By then, he would be competitors with all the other lords. There would be no allies. On the other hand, Qin Shuang felt that she had shown enough sincerity already. She was willing to exchange such a precious evolution stone for information in order to get closer to Su Hao. If they could improve their relationship, they could also become allies and deal with the invasion of darkness together. As she was pondering over that and having the impression that she could exchange it for some reliable information, his answer came as a surprise. [Because I like shiny, golden things. I¡¯ve answered your question, so please hand over the evolution stone.] Over on the other end, Qin Shuang was stunned when she read the message on the screen. ¡®He likes shiny, golden things?¡¯ Chapter 12 Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation Qin Shuang¡¯s expression soured. She did not believe Su Hao¡¯s words in the slightest. No one would trade that much food every day just because they liked gold and shiny things. She gave it some thought and decided to trade the evolution stone with him. That was her character. She believed that Su Hao would be someone who kept his word if he was willing to use 100 units of food to exchange for an evolution stone. Since that was the case, it was not impossible for her to use her sincerity to move him and allow him to take the initiative to establish a friendship with her. She immediately replied: [Alright, I¡¯ll give you the evolution stone. I meant what I said though. I don¡¯t want any food. I hope you¡¯ll see that I¡¯m sincere and I don¡¯t have any bad intentions. I just want to be friends with you.] The moment she sent the message, an uneven stone suddenly appeared in the middle of Su Hao¡¯s warehouse! He saw a black stone about 20 centimeters wide and 10 centimeters tall right in the middle of the warehouse floor. Su Hao¡¯s eyes lit up when he saw that, and he then walked over to touch the surface of the evolution stone. It was lustrous, dark, and sparkling a little too. There was no doubt that it was an evolution stone. It was exactly the same as the one he had seen in his previous life, except for the difference in size. He did not expect that Qin Shuang would really keep her word. However, he felt that there was no need to make friends at the moment, so he gave most of the meat, panther teeth, and some fur to her. After all, he did not want to owe her a favor. After sending those resources out, 24 catties of meat and 14 pieces of fur appeared in Su Hao¡¯s warehouse. Although there was not a lot left on Su Hao¡¯s end, the key was to feed the Holy Light Bug with the evolution stone ¡­ With that, he could imagine that the next day¡¯s food supply would definitely be much better than before! At the same time, Qin Shuang¡ªwho was still on the plains¡ªwas still under the impression that she could form a friendship with Su Hao, but she could not believe her eyes when she saw all that meat, fur, and even teeth in her warehouse. Her slightly pleased expression had disappeared in an instant. She did not know whether to laugh or cry, for she had never been that angry before! The fact that he had sent her food meant that he did not want to owe her a favor! Qin Shuang was a woman who had countless men chasing after her and begging her to be their friend! ¡®Who do you think you are, Su Hao! Do you think you¡¯re all that just because you have some beast meat and fur?¡¯ She did not lack any of those items at all! As soon as that thought popped up in her mind, a trace of anger appeared on her beautiful face! She already had a bad impression of Su Hao, and if she ever had the chance to meet him, she would definitely give him a piece of her mind! ¡­ At the same time, the 10,000 or so Holy Light Bugs that had just recovered from the Holy Healing Spring were now flying back into the darkness! Su Hao immediately took advantage of this opportunity to have the 10,000 Holy Light Bugs stay behind. He then ordered his militia to grind the evolution stone into powder and sprinkle it in the Holy Healing Spring. When the militia heard the order, the evolution stone¡ªwhich was still glowing with a black luster a moment ago¡ªwas immediately destroyed and turned into powder. Su Hao stored one-third of it in the warehouse for future use. The other two-thirds were ground into powder and scattered in the clear, blue water. The evolution stone powder floated in the Holy Healing Spring and dissolved in the water. The bugs¡¯ injuries had already recovered, and as soon as the black powder dissolved and the bugs came into contact with the black powder, a stronger and more resplendent golden light began to shine! After a few seconds, the golden light dissipated! The result was just as Su Hao anticipated. All of the bugs had doubled in size! The bugs that had been in the larval stage all along adults immediately evolved into adult bugs in an instant! The hardness of their carapace was four times that of a larva! It also meant that they could better withstand the attacks and injuries of the wild beasts in the dark. They would be more capable of handling the beasts, and the degree of injury would be greatly reduced. Furthermore, their wings were also three times larger than before, which meant that they could fly faster! All in all, the resistance and attack ability of the adult bugs were more than three times that of the original larvae! As soon as their injuries had completely recovered, they had immediately evolved into adult Holy Light Bugs. They all flew out of the Holy Healing Spring and into the dark sky! At that moment, they seemed to be filled with vitality and endless possibilities! The swarm of bright insects flashed golden in the dark sky, and the golden glow disappeared in the darkness slowly. ¡­ At the same time, in the depths of the dark forest, hundreds of thousands of Holy Light Bugs flapped their golden wings and flew in swarms. In just a few days, they multiplied infinitely and devoured everything in their path! The grass, trees, and green leaves of the forest were all eaten up wherever they went! One could even say that not a single new blade of grass could grow! They devoured everything in a wild frenzy and started multiplying like nobody¡¯s business! A few thousand turned into tens of thousands; tens of thousands turned into hundreds of thousands; and hundreds of thousands turned into a few million! They had reached a level where no numerical unit could count their numbers! It was terrifying! Furthermore, their bodies were also growing stronger by the day! At first they were two centimeters, then they grew to four centimeters, then six, then eight! it was not just the size of their body, but the size of their wings and feelers too! That was not all though! At that moment, behind the swarm of Holy Light Bugs were the adult bugs that had just eaten the evolution stone powder from the Holy Healing Spring. In a flash, the millions of larval holy bugs fused with the 10,000 adult bugs! A yellow explosion of light appeared! Millions of Holy Light Bugs were evolving at the same time, whether in the forest, on the cliff, on the sea, and in the air. All of them continued to move forward. Their wings, their shells, their feelers, and the light on their backs became harder, bigger, thicker, and brighter! Such was the power of the evolution stone. Once a bug received the evolution stone¡¯s effect, then all the bugs, no matter how large they were, would evolve together! It only took three seconds! The Holy Light Bugs had varying growth rates, with larvae turning into adults, and mature adults turning into bug kings! The bug kings were leading the rest of the swarm up front while flying and gnawing! Compared to the development speed of the other lords¡¯ troops, the Holy Light Bugs¡¯ growth rate was already tens of thousands of times faster. They had already exceeded the balanced level of development in that world! However, that was still not enough, because they would still encounter attacks from even more powerful forces even at such a terrifying growth rate! In the endless darkness, an unprecedented highly-concentrated dark force was attacking! The unknown darkness was visibly tearing apart! A hand made of black mist reached out from the tear! A black sky hung over the river, and everything was distorted. The entire continent was shocked by the power in the crack! A voice came from the crack. ¡°I¡¯m curious what kind of troop class has surpassed god-level.¡± Su Hao was shocked when he noticed that voice from his castle! His expression froze for a moment. ¡°That can¡¯t be! It¡¯s the Evil God!¡± Chapter 13 Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation Nothing was visible in the dark. However, the powerful deterrent force had already imperceptibly intimidated all the lords in the entire continent! The appearance of an Evil God! Its power was like an invisible wave! In that instant, all the thatched hut castles were instantly wrecked by the powerful force! The militia trembled as they were gathering wood and fighting against other wild beasts! It was as if no one could use their strength at that moment! Furthermore, all the lords were suppressed by that powerful force and sought cover in the thatched house at once! They held onto all the wooden stakes and sword pagodas that would prevent them from being swept over by that powerful force. All they could do was shout, for they could feel that their eardrums were being severely injured! Their hearts were palpitating too, as if they would bleed from every single orifice had the pressure lasted a second longer! However, that intimidating power lasted only ten seconds and began weakening slowly. The lords, who had just recovered from the ordeal, immediately opened the [World Chat Channel] and began to question! [What was that? What the hell happened?!] [Isn¡¯t the invasion of darkness a few days away?!] [I thought I was going to die! My eardrums nearly exploded!] [I¡¯m worse off than you! Even my level one castle was uprooted by that force!] Su Hao knew that it was not an invasion of the dark forces. It was a terrifying force comparable to the darkness invasion¡ªthe Evil God! The Evil God was the source of all evil! It was when all the evil energy would gather into one and upgrade to a god-like species! Its existence far surpassed all the troops on the continent! Such was a god whose existence ranked higher than all troops! It was even stronger than the SS-Grade Holy Light Bug! In his previous life, the Evil God only appeared during the final Eternal Night, which begged the question of why it would appear at such a time! Su Hao was aware of the danger and immediately ran to the Summoning Altar! He had to immediately recall all his Holy Light Bugs! After all, even the evolved Holy Light Bugs were no match for the Evil God! Even if they had multiplied in the millions, they were equivalent to nothing more than a swarm of ants in the eyes of the Evil God! At that instant, millions of Holy Light Bugs flew towards the Evil God in a frenzy! Millions of bugs gathered into a powerful swarm on a scale so large that it was beyond mere numerical units, yet they still paled in front of the Evil God. For the record, a swarm of several million Holy Light Bugs could still deal with unknown dark forces rather easily, and moreover, they had just consumed powder from the evolution stone¡ªthey were adult Holy Light Bugs that had just leveled up! Their strength could be said to be three times stronger than previously! If they had not encountered the Evil God, the millions of Holy Light Bugs that had just leveled up could have faced the dark forces as well as the invasion of darkness a few days later. It would be a piece of cake for them and they could easily overcome it. Unfortunately, Su Hao did not expect that the Evil God who previously only appeared in the Eternal Night had appeared so far ahead of schedule! He quickly gave the order through the Summoning Altar. ¡°Summon!¡± Right then, the millions of Holy Light Bugs gathered into a beam of strong light and rapidly turned into countless huge light beams! The countless huge beams were like a huge and sharp sword that raced against time and aimed at the Evil God without any hesitation! However, the finger in the dark crack pinched gently and murmured, ¡°Show me how strong you are.¡± The next second, the Holy Light Bugs that were already extremely powerful were treated like ants by the Evil God! In just a few short seconds, a gentle squeeze had killed more than half of the millions of Holy Light Bugs! Several million decreased into barelyover a million, and among the remaining million or so, there was one that was the largest and the most powerful, the Holy Light Bug¡¯s bug king! At this moment, they all sensed Su Hao¡¯s summoning and fled back! The next second, the Evil God reached out its hand once more toward them. It was as if the world was in chaos at that moment, and they would be torn apart by the Evil God! The huge threat had either killed or severely wounded the remaining million Holy Light Bugs, but suddenly, the bug king changed direction amongst the swarm of Holy Light Bugs! It flew straight toward the Evil God, as if it was unafraid of death! The Evil God looked at the ant-like Holy Light Bug and let out a ghostly, hellish voice. The hand in the black mist was holding the struggling bug king, and the Evil God was just talking in his sleep. ¡°You¡¯re not that strong.¡± The Evil God¡¯s comments were derisive, almost as if he wanted to tear the world apart! At the same time, Su Hao¡¯s pupils were already red. He frowned tightly as he looked at the smoke rising from the sandalwood Summoning Altar. Not even a single Holy Light Bug could be seen! Su Hao¡¯s heart was getting more and more nervous, and his whole body unconsciously tensed up. After all, he knew from his previous life just how powerful the Eternal Night was. He did not even dare to think about the kind of existence that could destroy all the humans in the world. There were no words to describe it. As to the question of how powerful an Evil God that came from the Eternal Night, the answer was that it could surpass all humans and troops. It was unperturbed even by an SS-Grade Holy Light Bug! It was as if all the Holy Light Bugs had died by the Evil God¡¯s dark power. The result then would be Su Hao¡¯s demise before the darkness invasion¡­ Over on the other end, the bug king had disappeared from the hands of the Evil God! More than a million Holy Light Bugs were running for their lives under the intimidating power of darkness! They were all ruthlessly struck down from the sky and plunged straight into darkness! At the same time, Su Hao¡¯s fingertips had already turned cold and his face was expressionless. He looked at the Summoning Altar that was still silent. There were no longer any words to describe the fear in his heart. At that moment, a blinding yellow light exploded from the summoning altar! Su Hao and the militia in his castle were all blinded by the piercing light! For a moment, the Evil God¡¯s intimidating presence could also be felt from the summoning altar. More than 50 militiamen were forced to retreat about 10 meters away, and Su Hao could not withstand it too! A sudden thud was heard. The wings on the back of a 12-centimeter bug king had been shaken to the point that they looked like remnants of a shadow. With its last bit of strength, it flew to the ground, raising a cloud of dust as soon as it landed! Then, a bluish, sparkling, gem-like object appeared from under its body! Su Hao, who opened his eyes right then, saw the bug king and the gem! His pupils contracted suddenly, and a glimmer of light flashed in his eyes! ¡°This is¡­a Dark Evolution Crystal!¡± Chapter 14 Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation The aftereffects from the Summoning Altar could still be felt, and a series of murmurs were heard! ¡°That¡¯s all the bug king is capable of.¡± Immediately after that, the bug king that had escaped back twitched and was about to die! The bug king¡¯s broken legs were about to crumble! Su Hao¡¯s pupils contracted. He immediately carried the bug king and rushed toward the Holy Healing Spring! He could not let it die, because it was the only Holy Light Bug left! Su Hao felt his heart ache at that moment. Plop! As soon as the dying bug king descended into the Holy Healing Spring, light appeared above the spring water, and the tiny, sparkling water droplets began to evaporate. The bug king¡¯s figure became an illusion within the mist. The illusion gradually turned into a real body, and the broken legs gradually recovered. The hard shell, as well as the thick and flexible feelers, began to recover slowly too, and its pair of golden, shining wings came into view. A few seconds later, the light dissipated. The bug king had recovered! It was completely recovered despite being on the verge of death! At the same time, the aftereffects from the Summoning Altar had also dissipated, whereupon the castle finally returned to peace. The whole process only took one second! The speed was such that one¡¯s reactions could not even keep up! Upon seeing that, Su Hao¡¯s slightly stiff body relaxed gradually. He took a deep breath, glanced at the peaceful surroundings, and saw the reinvigorated bug king in the spring. It was filled with vitality in no time! In his previous life, the Eternal Night had allowed him to experience despair, helplessness, chaos, and the insignificance of human beings! That similar feeling had once again filled his heart moments earlier! With that thought, he lowered his eyelashes and a cold glimmer appeared in his eyes. He needed to be the change in the world! The leader of his militia then knelt on one leg and offered the Dark Evolution Crystal to him with both hands. ¡°My Lord, these are the treasures that the bug king dropped when it landed. Please have a look.¡± The sudden change in situation allowed his rationality to return. Su Hao glanced at the Dark Evolution Crystal. What he saw was a black, glowing crystal ball with the color of agate. It had a radius of about five centimeters, and appeared exactly as what he saw in his previous life during the Eternal Night. Su Hao held the Dark Evolution Crystal in his hand and gazed down. He knew just what kind of effect the Dark Evolution Crystal had. Its strength lay in the fact that it was able to upgrade troops of different levels, as they would become SSS-Grade after consuming the crystal! Even a F-Grade low-rank troop type would immediately become SSS-Grade if they consumed it! One could only imagine how powerful the Dark Evolution Crystal was, considering its ability to trigger the upgrade of seven grades. It could make a troop super powerful in a short time, allowing it to advance to a godlike-level and surpassing all the high-level troops on the continent. Furthermore, it was something that all the sacred artifacts on the continent could not compare to. However, Su Hao was not too happy to obtain the crystal, because he knew that the Evil God left it behind and spared the bug king¡¯s life on purpose. Had it not been done on purpose, the bug king would not have been able to come back alive from the Evil God¡¯s clutches. Furthermore, it had even brought back the Dark Evolution Crystal that belonged to the Evil God. Su Hao figured that the reason the Evil God did that was because the speed and scale of hisHoly Light Bugs were simply too extraordinary. They were so out-of-this-world that nothing else on the entire continent could ever compare to them. The entire balance of the ecosystem was disrupted! That was also the reason the Evil God had exterminated all of the Holy Light Bugs, leaving only the bug king alive. However, the bug king was like an ant in front of the Evil God, who could turn it into ashes with a light pinch, or even without actually pinching for that matter. Maintaining the ecosystem¡¯s balance was the only explanation for the Evil God¡¯s actions. He had left behind a bug king so it survived on the continent. It was also why the Evil God left the Dark Evolution Crystal behind. At the same time, the Evil God¡¯s appearance and disappearance was definitely not as simple as simply maintaining the balance of the ecosystem. Su Hao could understand a thing or two after hearing the murmurs and feeling shockwaves that came from the Summoning Altar. If the Evil God could leave the darkness, then the Evil God¡¯s ¡®hand¡¯ would not just remain in the darkness. Su Hao concluded that the Evil God would never be able to leave the darkness as long as it was not the Eternal Night. If that happened, the entire continent would be plunged into endless darkness, and the Evil God would be able to destroy everything! The ecosystem would be torn apart, and the entire human race would be annihilated! However, the Evil God¡¯s appearance and disappearance today was merely fleeting. The power of the darkness¡¯ aftereffect that spread to the territory was only one-billionth of the power in the darkness. That would mean only one thing¡ªthe Evil God would never be able to leave the darkness as long as the Eternal Night had not come. In other words, Su Hao had to be strong enough to fight against it before the Eternal Night descended upon them. That was the only way! Only then would Su Hao have the confidence to reverse the situation and save mankind from destruction! In light of what happened, the first thing he had to do was to keep a low profile and control the number of Holy Light Bugs he had. In addition to boosting the abilities and numbers of the Holy Light Bugs to the highest level, he needed to also control the number of Holy Light Bugs. The extent of their multiplication had reached millions, and any instance where he exceeded the ecosystem¡¯s balance would lead to the Evil God¡¯s early appearance. Therefore, he ought to maintain only a few hundred thousand of them, which he would then develop into a bug king, or even stronger. That was the only way he could stand tall on the entire continent and compete with the gods. When he thought of that, he ordered the militia to give the Dark Evolution Crystal to the bug king. He watched as his militiaman threw the Dark Evolution Crystal into the Holy Healing Spring. In an instant, the Dark Evolution Crystal melted rapidly in the middle of the clear blue lake, dissipating in the Holy Healing Spring to produce a sudden wave of blackish, crystal-like ripples. A black light began to shine, and the ripples of the black crystal swept up from the water and shot into the sky! The bug king was directly surrounded by that wave of water! Three colors¡ªblack, gold, and blue¡ªappeared in Su Hao¡¯s vision and flickered intermittently. Within a few seconds, the bug king flapped its golden wings and instantly turned golden-black! Its two flapping wings instantly split into four, and its six thick feelers instantly doubled! Su Hao narrowed his eyes and saw the overwhelming radiance of the bug king. The bug king was exuding a cold aura over its surroundings, causing every inch of grass in the castle to wither! All of a sudden, the wind¡¯s howls resonated throughout the castle! More than 50 militia widened their eyes in shock and took a few steps back in fear! Su Hao, however, narrowed his eyes and remained calm in front of the Holy Healing Spring. He knew that the SS-Grade Holy Light Bug in front of him had disappeared from the entire continent forever. Before him, however, was an existence that could confront godly beings and even surpass them¡ªan SSS-Grade Sacred Night Bug! Chapter 15 Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation The Sacred Night Bug came into existence. All the troops on the continent trembled, and the cries of the wild beasts continued in an ever miserable and fearful tone in the darkness. The night was dark and the fog continued to linger. An increasing amount of dangerous and terrifying beasts were being jolted awake by that frightening power. Back inside the castle, Su Hao looked at the Sacred Night Bug that had been upgraded to SSS-Grade and then placed it into the darkness. The invasion of darkness was nearing, and he had to speed up the growth of the Sacred Night Bug! Furthermore, there was not much food left in the warehouse. After experiencing such a traumatizing event, Su Hao knew that he had to control all future development. Moreover, he was fine with letting only one Sacred Night Bug grow in the dark, because there were no troops or wild beasts on that entire continent that could compare to the SSS-Grade Sacred Night Bug. On the contrary, too fast a development would necessitate Su Hao to recall it in time to control rein in their development a little. It was the only way the Evil God would not be attracted to the world again. As soon as he had that thought, Su Hao gave his order to the Sacred Night Bug, which had already darted into the endless darkness. Its golden-black wings sparkled the mist and it eventually disappeared. ¡­ At the same time, the other feudal lords on the continent were also making progress at a steady pace after about three days. They were happy and delighted with their development, and everyone seemed to be chatting in the [World Chat Channel]. [Man, I thought it¡¯d be difficult, but the elves in my Spirit Flower Garden have already grown to three! They went out to hunt this morning, and they actually brought back the corpse of a level one Black Panther! One Black Panther is worth ten units of panther meat, so I don¡¯t think I¡¯ll let myself be scammed in the trading channel anymore, especially not to that guy who offered food in exchange for gold coins!] [Not bad, but the number of spirits in my Spirit Castle has already reached five! They brought back the corpses of a level one Black Panther and a level one Wild Bull! I¡¯m eating comfortably now!] [Yeah! My castle has been upgraded too! I finally moved from a thatched house to a wooden house! I¡¯m so happy!] [I haven¡¯t upgraded my castle, but I gave all my resources, including food, to my half-dragon troops. I can¡¯t even bear to eat it myself! The countdown to the invasion of darkness is getting closer and closer, so we must focus on training our troops!] [I agree with him! I¡¯m mostly happy over the fact that we¡¯re finally able to let our troops hunt outside. We¡¯re one step closer to success as long as we can successfully kill wild beasts!] [That¡¯s right! And another thing! We don¡¯t have to be ripped off by that sh*thead anymore! Even if my troops can only bring back 10 units of meat, I¡¯m willing to wait for them to become stronger! I¡¯d rather die than get ripped off by that sh*thead again!] [I totally agree! Besides, he¡¯s not the only one who can trade on the Trading Channel. We can also trade our items in the channel if we get more food, or if we get stuff like energy stones and crystals!] [You¡¯re right! Why didn¡¯t I think of that sooner! Let¡¯s make a deal, fellas!] Moments later, the [Trading Channel] was instantly filled with a wave of trading. [Blue Fatty¡¯s Castle: one unit of food for ten stacks of wood!] [Spirit Flower Garden: one unit of food in exchange for ten stacks of stone!] [Half-Dragon Castle: one unit of food for half a ton of coal!] [Death Knight Castle¡­] ¡­ Everyone began to join in the wave of trading. When supply exceeds demand, the unit prices would be lowered accordingly. It also meant that one unit of Su Hao¡¯s food would no longer be as valuable, and the transaction of one unit for 10,000 gold coins would probably slowly be forgotten or even ignored in the trading market. Su Hao closed the panel and smiled faintly. He had already expected the situation, since he could not have been the only one on the entire continent who was making progress. Everyone else was also making every second count for their survival. However, little did they all know that the result of their efforts was not even one-hundred-millionth of the Sacred Night Bug. Su Hao was absolutely confident that he could force the other lords to buy his food. At the same time, the lone Sacred Night Bug was wreaking havoc in the unknown darkness where fog filled the place!. It was fearless and ruthless. A gust of cold wind blew everywhere it passed, and a cold aura was perceivable in a five-mile radius around it. The aura directly started all the wild beasts within those five miles, even causing some to die. The beasts roared as the mountains and rivers trembled. Every single low-level wild beasts fled in panic, but none of them escaped the Sacred Night Bug¡¯s ¡®demonic claws¡¯. Dozens of level one Wild Leopards were frantically running away in front of the bug, and their faces had a pained expression! The Sacred Night Bug was flying at full speed about a kilometer behind them! Within a second, more than a dozen level one leopards were instantly killed and dismembered! The lone Sacred Night Bug was strengthened by the ability to devour and multiply infinitely. One turned into 10; 10 turned into 100; 100 turned into 1,000; 1,000 turned into 10,000! The Sacred Night Bug that had been operating solo a moment ago had now multiplied into a huge black mass! They formed swarms and shuttled back and forth to devour everything within sight. They ravaged every single place they went, and not even a blade of grass was growing. The Sacred Night Bugs had grown to such an epically terrifying scale in just a second, and they achieved that result simply by devouring a dozen Wild Leopards. If they were to encounter a beasts of far higher level and far greater numbers, there really was no limit to how much that could multiply. One could easily imagine how powerful those SSS-Grade Sacred Night Bugs were! Their very existence could be likened to gods! At the same time, a huge, five-meter-tall level six Giant Ape was gradually waking up in the cave. Previously, the Holy Light Bugs had never attacked any beasts above level five. Thus, the higher-leveled beasts never saw any reason to do so, as there were other lower-class wild beasts for the Holy Light Bugs to deal with. There was a simple explanation for why all those beasts were waking up then¡ªthey were all so intimidated by the powerful force that they had no choice but to wake up! If they did not wake up any sooner, they would not be in a position to escape or fight. Death would then become the only certainty that awaited them! Chapter 16 Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation At that moment, a young man wearing blue leather armor was standing on a certain mountain peak in the Endless Mainland with his hands behind his back . In his field of vision, 10 eight-meter-long Black Dragons were frantically hunting a group of gnomes who were running around the mountain. The Black Dragons that were positioned at the top of the food chain were facing a large number of tricky level four gnomes, yet they viewed those gnomes as if the latter were ants! Next, the flying Black Dragon roared, shocking all the gnomes! Within just a few seconds, countless gnomes were killed by the Black Dragon. In an instant, corpses were everywhere, and thick black blood splashed all over the mountain peak! The gnome corpses were then collected one by one. In the end, the young man had gained 239 units of meat, five energy stones, and one mutant crystal. After collecting the corpses, he smiled and stood on the mountain top to get a view of the endless darkness from atop. ¡°As expected of an SS-Grade Black Dragon.¡± Ever since that young man had transmigrated to this world, he had received an SSS-Grade talent: ultimate vessel training. That talent allowed him to develop all the troops under his command into maturity using the shortest time possible. Moreover, he had won a SS-Grade Black Dragon in the castle lottery! Within a couple of days, he had trained the young Black Dragon into an adult! As it grew, the Black Dragon continued to pass on the SSS-Grade talent: ultimate vessel training and reproduction. In a few more days, he came to own three SS-Grade adult Black Dragons and seven SS-Grade baby dragons. The food and other resources harvested by the ten Black Dragons had already filled the castle¡¯s warehouse. He was very astute toward his own strength on that continent, so much so that he laughed when he saw the transaction information of the lord who exchanged food for gold coins and the comments of the other city lords who admired his ability. Those who could gather so much food must surely be capable in some way, but most of the food the young man received was used to raise his Black Dragons. However, he had accumulated more than enough food and it was about time to trade them. The young man was very confident that his Black Dragons would be able to scoff at the world beneath it! The lord who used gold coins to exchange for food had already shown his presence in front of everyone on the continent, and it was only a stumbling block on his path to growth. Surpassing that lord and kicking him down from his high pedestal was more than possible. After all, he already had an SSS-Grade talent and was lucky to get an SS-Grade Black Dragon right from the beginning. Who else could have such luck aside from him? Furthermore, he had already obtained 400 units of food that day, which was almost enough to surpass the 300 units of food that the so-called Big Shot had obtained two days ago! He would eventually be the only one who could rule the Endless Continent! At that moment, a message popped up in his vision. [Congratulations, you have obtained 50 energy stones and 3 mutant crystals!] [The Black Dragon Castle has been upgraded to a Level 4 Castle!] As soon as the castle was upgraded to a concrete castle, an announcement was made in real time. [Congratulations! The Black Dragon Castle has been upgraded to Level 4!] As soon as that news was released, everyone in the entire [World Chat Channel] went crazy! The lords were all surprised! How was it even possible for someone to advance to level four in just three days! It was simply terrifying! News of Su Hao¡¯s castle being upgraded to level three the previous day had already caused a storm. At that time, Su Hao¡¯s name¡ªas well as the name of his Holy Light Castle¡ªhad already spread far and wide. At that moment, all the lords were shocked to find out that there was actually another person who was stronger than Su Hao! [No way! A Black Dragon Castle! That¡¯s an SS-Grade troop type! He¡¯s so lucky!] [Yeah! I thought Su Hao was already powerful enough, but I didn¡¯t expect Han Yan to upgrade to a level 4 castle even faster than Su Hao!] [Wait a minute! When did Han Yan even upgrade to a level 3 castle? Why didn¡¯t I notice that? How could I have missed the opportunity to be friends with such a powerful figure! It¡¯s not too late, is it!] [I feel like crying! Why did I only draw an E-Class fat blue elf at the start of the game? This isn¡¯t fair!¡± [Ugh, don¡¯t even mention that anymore. My talent and troop type are both E, and my castle is only at level 1¡­] [Amazing! Can you share with us how you did it, Han Yan? I wanna be your fan!] ¡­ Han Yan felt even more satisfied when he saw all those comments. He knew very well that a large amount of food was required during the early stages of development, so he fed everything to his Black Dragon. That was the only thing holding him back from receiving praise ahead of Su Hao in the [World Chat Channel] and [Trading Channel] a few days ago. Although the Black Dragon was powerful, the only downside was that it needed a large amount of food to feed. A Black Dragon¡¯s daily food intake would reach more than 20 units, and he had 10 Black Dragons to raise. For that reason, he had been suppressing his desire to trade for food in the [Trading Channel]. If he did not have that need to restrict himself, his reputation would definitely be at A level where it was impossible to ignore him. The reason he wanted to exchange a large amount of food for resources was not just for fame and reputation¡ªthere was one other important point. He wanted to bring all the lords together and inspire them to become a citizen of his Black Dragon Castle! With that, he could be the ruler and leader of the continent¡ªthat was his ultimate goal. At that point, he saved some food for his Black Dragon and put the extra 396 units of food on the [Trading Channel]. He added the name of his castle to the transaction information, and changed the ¡®price¡¯ of the food to one that all the lords would gladly accept. The purpose of his actions was very simple. He wanted most¨Cideally all¡ªof the city lords to buy food from him, leading them to rely on him, respect him, and even seek refuge with him! Moments later, the information in the trading channel was updated again! [20 units of gnome meat for 1 energy stone] [20 units of gnome meat in exchange for 1 stack of wood or 1 stack of stone] [396 units of gnome meat available] [Black Dragon castle: Han Yan] As soon as his offer was posted on the [Trading Channel], those who had just been flattering Han Yan were caught by surprise, as were the lords who had just entered the chat area! They were not just surprised that Han Yan was able to take out so much food at once; they were more surprised at the price-value ratio! 20 units for one energy stone! 20 units of goblin meat for one stack of wood or one stack of stone! That was a stark contrast to the ¡®profiteer¡¯ who asked for 10,000 gold coins to exchange for a unit of food. Even though gold coins were useless to them, their gold coins were getting lesser, and it was a good bargain to exchange a small amount of energy stones or wood or stones for 20 units of food One might even say that the Han Yan had no intention of exchanging resources at all¡ªhe was practically giving away his food for free! Chapter 17 Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation Han Yan¡¯s food was gone in just a few seconds. What he gained, on the other hand, was only a dozen energy stones and a dozen sets of stones and wood. In his opinion, it was not an unfair deal. After all, his actions had won him praise and adoration in the hearts of all the lords . He then opened his [Friend Messages] page and saw that there were more than 10,000 friend requests. The sight of that elicited a little smile. ¡®There¡¯s more to come, Su Hao. You¡¯ve been training your guns for some time already, so it¡¯s about time to shave off some of your momentum. Now¡¯s the perfect time to do just that.¡¯ ¡­ At the same time, there was an intense battle in the deep, dark rocky outcrop more than 400 meters away from the castle. The battlefield was filled with the corpses of more than ten Giant Apes. The ape¡¯s corpses were covered in blood, and the entire place reeked of blood. Other than the dozen or so Giant Apes that had died, there were still another eight that were fighting for their lives. The resources that could be collected from a single Giant Ape were equivalent to 20 Black Panthers. They were all level six Giant Apes who had just woken up from a long slumber, but they could not hang on very long in the face of more than 10,000 Sacred Night Bugs ¡­ Moreover, they were scurrying around like headless chickens and were immediately devoured by the swarm of frenzied Sacred Night Bugs. The last remaining level six Giant Ape was standing on a large green stone. As it thumped its chest and bared its mucus-covered fangs, its eyes were bloodshot as it watched its brethren die right before its very eyes! level six Giant Apes were elite apes that could be considered the boss among all the level five Giant Apes! It immediately growled in a low voice! ¡°Roar!¡± Its roar was filled with a warning and a threat, but its expression clearly showed that it was flustered. The dark mass of Sacred Night Bugs that glowed with golden light showed no signs of retreating or fear. Those SSS-Grade Sacred Night Bugs had nothing to fear. The level six Giant Ape opened its blood red eyes wide and growled. At the same time, it began to move its four limbs and retreat. Its blood-red pupils were a murky blood-red color, and it continued growling incessantly to try and scare off its enemy. Alas, the 10,000 or so Sacred Night Bugs did not move an inch. They were hardly frightened at all. Not even a god that descended upon them could scare the Sacred Night Bugs away! A roar was heard the next second! ¡°Roar!¡± The elite level six Giant Ape opened its ferocious mouth and chomped at the Sacred Night Bugs! Trees were torn apart wherever they went and some even collapsed, which just goes to show the sheer strength of the Giant Ape! However, the Sacred Night Bugs were agile and attacked in swarms, though they were forced to break formation when the Giant Ape attacked. However, the break in formation only lasted for a moment. They flapped their golden-black wings and dodged up and down, with their bodies moving nimbly so they could merge quickly with the separated swarm. The bugs had swiftly dodged the attack of the Giant Ape. Soon after, the 10,000 strong Sacred Night Bugs merged into a sharp, sword-like formation and shot straight toward the chest of the Giant Ape! Pierce! In a flash, the Giant Ape wailed in pain as it jumped off the large green stone and desperately tried to flee! The Sacred Night Bugs did not wait a second longer as they all began pursuing it! In an instant, the Giant Ape¡¯s entire body was pierced through by the Sacred Night Bugs! Its sturdy body was covered in gold and black! The next second, its body exploded! A level six Giant Ape had disappeared from that world, turning into nothing more than a pile of mincemeat. For a while, every corner of the darkness was filled with the thick smell of blood. In just over a minute, the Sacred Night Bugs had multiplied infinitely by killing the Giant Ape! The 10,000 bugs turned to 20,000 bugs and finally 50,000! At that moment, there were already more than 50,000 of them! ¡­ Back at the courtyard in the Holy Light Castle, a dazzling golden light enveloped Su Hao. Once the golden light dissipated, a huge number of Giant Ape corpses appeared in the castle. There was a hint of surprise in Su Hao¡¯s eyes when he saw the Giant Ape corpses. He marveled at how different the Sacred Night Bugs¡¯ strength was compared to the Holy Light Bugs. Before that, the Holy Light Bugs had only been able to kill wild beasts from level one to level four. They never killed a wild beast above level four. The corpses and resources that had been collected were only meat, fur, teeth, energy stones, and mutant crystals¡ªall ordinary resources. However, the Sacred Night Bugs had killed elite beasts from level five to six as soon as it was born! It was unimaginable! It meant that level four or even lower leveled wild beasts were the maximum upper limit for the Holy Light Bugs. However, level five or even level six beasts and creatures were probably just the starting position for the Sacred Night Bugs. They had already exceeded the upper limit of the Holy Light Bugs from the start, and a reasonable conclusion that could be drawn was that the Sacred Night Bugs were an existence that were on par with the gods! Furthermore, while the Sacred Night Bugs were growing outside, Su Hao would summon it back from time to time to prevent rapid development. Controlling the speed of development was necessary to prevent the Evil God from appearing. At that moment, Su Hao collected the corpses one by one in surprise. He did not expect that the resources collected from a Giant Ape were more than 10 to 20 times that of the previous beasts! For example, 10 units of leopard meat could be collected from a level three Wild Leopard. However, one to two hundred units of ape meat could be collected from a single Giant Ape! Nearly 2000 units of ape meat had been collected from just a dozen or so Giant Apes! The taste and quality of that ape meat were more than ten times that of leopard meat! Moreover, eating ape meat did more than just relieve him of hunger¡ªit could also increase his energy value and speed up his upgrade. The more he ate, the higher his energy value would be and the faster he could level up as a lord. That was not the main point though. After collecting the dozen or so Giant Apes, he received ape meat along with 43 energy stones and five mutant crystals! Su Hao never expected to get that kind of quantity. The Holy Light Bugs had collected about two to three hundred units of ordinary food, a dozen energy stones, and one or two mutant crystals each time. The Sacred Night Bugs did not just bring back several times that amount¡ªthe quality of the food had improved by just as much too. The initial food that he received was only able to fill his stomach, but satiating his hunger was the secondary purpose of the elite ape meat collected from level five or level six apes. What was most important was the meat¡¯s ability to increase his energy points and allow his lord level to level up faster! The same was true for the number of energy stones and mutant crystals he had obtained. Perhaps the higher-leveled beasts would have more energy stones and mutant crystals. He had obtained four to five times the original amount of energy stones with just over twenty Giant Apes. That sped up his harvest as well as his castle upgrade. He might even be able to level up by skipping levels. All in all, the Sacred Night Bugs¡¯ ability had completely surpassed Su Hao¡¯s imagination. Chapter 18 Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation The food that had been harvested came to a total of 2369 units. There were also various items such as ape teeth, fur, and other materials. Su Hao took out 2000 units of the elite ape meat and put them on the [Trading Channel]. [One unit of elite ape meat for 10,000 gold coins.] [Special elite-grade ape meat. Eating it can strengthen one¡¯s physical fitness and increase one¡¯s strength.] Before putting it up for sale, tSu Hao had eaten a unit of ape meat and saw his energy value increase almost instantly by one point. One could see that elite ape meat was very worth buying. They could even be exchanged for more gold coins. However, Su Hao knew that his popularity in the [Trading Channel] had waned a little, firstly because many of the castle lords¡¯ strength had increased, and secondly because more and more castle lords were starting to sell food. There was no longer a shortage of food, and expensive food became a thing of the past. During this period, a city lord named Han Yan frequently sold food at low prices. The demand for Su Hao¡¯s food dropped significantly as a result. In order to maintain a high sales volume, Su Hao did not increase his selling price for the elite grade ape meat and kept it at the original price of 10,000 gold coins. He knew that people would still be buying it even without lowering the price of the gold coins. After all, he was offering elite-grade ape meat that no one else had. Eating it could increase one¡¯s level-up speed, so as soon as the news was released, all the lords were dumbfounded. In addition, many expressed their surprise at Su Hao¡¯s offer, because the amount of meat he had put up for sale was simply too much! No one had ever placed so much food for sale at once, and Su Hao had just offered 2000 units! Even Han Yan had only offered 300 to 400 units. Han Yan¡¯s food was only level one goblin meat, which served only to fill one¡¯s stomach. What Su Hao placed on the market was level five and even level six ape meat! The sheer quality was almost five levels higher! Was there anyone in the entire continent who could surpass Su Hao? 2,000 units was a ridiculous amount, because even 1,000 units of food was difficult enough to achieve! Those A-, S-, and even SS- and SSS-Grade castle lords could only load up to 300-400 units of food in a day. Su Hao, on the other hand, could offer 2,000 units, and every single unit was elite-grade ape meat! [Dear! Come over and take a look at God!!] [Who are you, o amazing God! Can you tell us your name?] [2000 units of food. How many wild beasts would that take?] [More than 200, probably!] [Not necessarily, though. It¡¯s an elite beast we¡¯re talking about. The difficulty of killing one is much higher than killing 10 or 20, and one might even say that 10 or 20 wild beasts are still inferior to a single elite beast!] [Unbelievable!] [Goodness me! What¡¯s this guy¡¯s name? Why can¡¯t I see it? I can¡¯t even see the name of his castle!] [You¡¯re not the only one. I can¡¯t see it either. It¡¯s a privacy setting set by this big shot, but I suspect that he¡¯s Su Hao!] [You¡¯re right! Su Hao, Han Yan, and Qin Shuang¡¯s names are the only ones in this worldwho are well-known to everyone in the chat channel. The only one who can offer up much food has to be one of them!] [That might not necessarily be the case! Perhaps some lords were dark horses and never showed themselves in the past! Just take Han Yan, for example! He¡¯s always kept a low profile and only appeared recently!] [I can¡¯t believe it!] [Dear heavens! Just how terrifying is this big shot and his castle?!] [I killed a total of 10 wild beasts today, but the food I got was less than 10 units. It¡¯s not even a fraction of this guy¡¯s food. Just imagine the sheer terror!] [According to my investigation, elite monsters are at least level 5!] [Most of the castle lords¡¯ troops are only at level one or two, with a small number at rank three. It¡¯s basically impossible to hunt elite bosses above rank five!] [But this big shot did it!] [I have to say, although this big boss is a profiteer and I thought he was a piece of sh*t at first, I still think he¡¯s a piece of sh*t now! But he¡¯s a strong piece of sh*t at least!] [High-quality ape meat that can actually strengthen one¡¯s physical fitness and increase one¡¯s strength! I want it, and I want it badly!] [Buy it! Buying everything! It¡¯s just gold coins! If you can buy food that can increase your energy value and help in leveling up, then it is not a waste at all!] [Spirit Flower Garden is shocked!] [Blue Fatty¡¯s Castle: I want to become the big shot¡¯s citizen! Isn¡¯t it nice to live a good life with a big shot? I don¡¯t even need to develop my own strength! I don¡¯t want to work hard at all, and I surrender right here!] [Silver Castle: +1!] [Wild Rabbit Castle: +1!] ¡­ In that split second, many castle lords with high-level and top-tier troops emerged. They all added Su Hao as a friend. Although they guessed that the person who exchanged gold coins for items every time was Su Hao, they had no evidence to back their claims. As a result, they merely wanted to make friends with Su Hao in the hopes that he could lead everyone to resist the endless dark forces. However, Su Hao took a look at his notifications and saw a massive number of friend requests. There was even a friend request from the Black Dragon Castle. However, Su Hao was unperturbed and glanced indifferently at them before rejecting everyone in one go. At the same time, the situation was just as Su Hao predicted. Compared to using energy stones, mutant crystals, or wood to exchange for ordinary food that could only satiate one¡¯s hunger, it would be better to use the useless gold coins to exchange for higher quality food. No one wasted any wood, energy stones, or crystals either. In an instant, all of the lords thought that Han Yan¡¯s ¡®charitable deed¡¯ of exchanging so much food for a small amount of wood and energy stones was a waste of resources. Rather than trading mutant crystals and wood for low-level food, one might as well use the useless gold coins to exchange for high-level food! That was the true nature of an exchange¡ªthat was the true meaning of charity! They had all misunderstood Su Hao! They were moved to tears at that moment and rushed to buy the meat upon sensing Su Hao¡¯s sincerity! At the same time, they began to prostrate themselves to Su Hao in the chat! [Everyone! We¡¯ve been wrong about the big shot! If the big boss is willing to use such expensive food to exchange for gold coins with us, is there anything we would complain about?] [That¡¯s right! It turns out that he¡¯s even better than Han Yan! He¡¯s always offered food in exchange for gold coins, unlike Han Yan who still wants us to exchange energy stones and mutant crystals! Even if the amount is small, it¡¯s all I have because I haven¡¯t even upgraded my castle yet!] [I love you, Big Shot! Please show me the way!] [I¡¯d rather be your underling! I don¡¯t want to do everything myself!] [Hey, I have dibs on that!] Su Hao¡¯s reputation once again soared, and Han Yan¡¯s luster instantly became dull in the eyes of all the lords, almost forgotten even. After all, it was a continent where the strong preyed on the weak. Everyone only remembered first place. No one would ever remember second place. At that moment, standing on a certain mountain peak was Han Yan, who wore a blue suit of armor and was clenching his fists so tightly that his veins were bulging. He gritted his teeth and had a rage-filled expression as he looked at the Black Dragon that was still moving in circles before him. ¡°Impossible. That¡¯s level six ape meat! And 2,000 units too¡­¡± Chapter 19 Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation Back at the Holy Light Castle, Su Hao glanced indifferently at the gold coins in his personal information. [Gold coins accumulated: 20.23 million gold coins] [48 energy stones, 5 mutant crystals.] To upgrade the castle to level four, he needed 50 energy stones and four mutant crystals. Only two more energy stones were needed. Su Hao estimated that the level up would happen in less than a second. Furthermore, Su Hao surmised that there should be around 50,000 to 60,000 Sacred Night Bugs, which meant that it was time to summon them back. As he thought of that, he walked to the Summoning Altar and summoned the Sacred Night Bugs back. With his order, a wisp of white smoke was emitted from the sandalwood Summoning Altar. Then, tens of thousands of Sacred Night Bugs emerged from the altar, but the bugs did not just come back empty-handed! There were actually more than a dozen elite-grade monsters¡¯ corpses. Su Hao was somewhat speechless when he saw that. In the time it took to sell the food, the bugs had captured a dozen more elite-level beast corpses. There were more than 2000 units of special food, 53 crystals, and eight mutant crystals. If such a rapid rate of development was left unchecked, the Evil God could reappear at any moment! Su Hao sighed gently. He had to let the bugs stay in the castle for the time being, because such high-profile development would definitely attract other troubles. It was time to slow down. That was the first time he felt how troublesome it would be to let things develop too quickly. At that moment, a golden light flashed and a series of words appeared in front of Su Hao¡¯s vision! [Congratulations, the Holy Light Castle leveled up by 2 levels!] [111 energy stones and 13 mutant crystals have been accumulated!] [The requirements for a castle to be upgraded to level five are 100 energy stones and 8 mutant crystals!] [Do you want to upgrade the castle?] [Yes/No] Su Hao touched his forehead silently. Two levels in one go meant that his name and the castle¡¯s name would be announced in the [World Announcement] again. More lords would want to add him as a friend! He did not have a choice though, as he was unable to set the leveling up to private. He knew that if that continued, his name would soon be associated with the ¡®big shot¡¯ in the [Trading Channel] who used gold coins to trade for food. However, it was only a mere annoyance that did not affect him much. There was another important point¡ªSu Hao was reborn, so he knew that the castle could no longer be upgraded by only using energy stones and mutant crystals after reaching level five. To upgrade above that level, one needed to obtain elements that include gold, wood, water, fire, earth, light, and so on. Only if one possessed those elements that the shackles of level five and up could be broken. It goes without saying that energy stones and mutant crystals would still be useful by then, but they would no longer be a necessity for leveling up and become only supplementary items instead. The elements however, were a necessity after breaking through to level five. Only after obtaining those elements that one could develop into a city-state. Therefore, Su Hao had to speed up the process of obtaining elements. With that in mind, Su Hao answered, ¡°Yes.¡± In an instant, a burst of golden-white light rose. A thick fog then appeared in all directions, lingering around the stone brick castle. The golden light dissipated a few seconds later, and a slightly exquisite castle appeared before Su Hao¡¯s vision. The exterior of the castle, which was built with stone bricks, was now made of white tiles with veined patterns. The roof had also changed to a slightly high-end marble, which replaced the somewhat shoddy-looking red bricks. The initial three stories had become six stories, reaching more than 25 meters in height. There was even an additional small-scale sub-castle that occupied about 10 square meters. [Congratulations! Your castle has been upgraded by two levels, skipping the concrete castle to become a level 5 castle made of ceramic tiles!] [Congratulations! Level 5 Holy Light Castle¡¯s range of influence has been increased to 2000 meters!] [The castle¡¯s defense has been increased by three times!] [Your Holy Light Castle¡¯s influence and reputation in the Endless Continent have been greatly increased!] Su Hao stood in front of the castle and looked up at the slightly more exquisite castle that occupied a larger and more spacious area. He was expressionless, because despite feeling some joy in his heart, he knew that it was not a good thing to level up too quickly. He knew more people would notice him after his reputation had increased greatly, and there would also be more capable lords who would want to get close to him and join him. However, it also meant that there would be more forces in the dark who would notice his castle and want to attack it. Whether a person was friend or foe still could not be known for sure. What he needed to do was to control the speed of development as much as possible, and then maintain a low profile. On that basis, he could not make any friends just yet. As Su Hao was still feeling vexed over everything, the level up information in the world announcement was updated once again! [Congratulations! Holy Light Castle has been upgraded by 2 levels!] [Current level: level 5] [Castle Lord: Su Hao] He had offered 2000 units of food to trade a few moments ago, and it took less than a few seconds after that for him to level up twice. Su Hao¡¯s name had been automatically associated with the ¡®idiot¡¯ and ¡®piece of sh*t¡¯ that everyone used to talk about in the Trading Channel. All of the lords were even more shocked than before! [F*ck! I don¡¯t need to guess anymore. It¡¯s Su Hao!] [This is terrifying! I was already shocked beyond words when he offered 2000 units of food, and it¡¯s an even bigger shock for him to upgrade by skipping two levels!] [Big Shot Su Hao: I won¡¯t pretend anymore.] [Big Shot Su Hao: I won¡¯t hide anymore. I¡¯m a gold coin collector!] [Big Shot Su Hao: I wanted to share all my food with the castle lords because I don¡¯t want anyone to go hungry.] [Big Shot Su Hao never once said anything. He keeps a low profile!] [I¡¯m so tired with life¡­ This is the difference between people I guess. I thought that Han Yan had already surpassed Su Hao not long ago, and the upgrade to level 4 was already the peak! I didn¡¯t expect Su Hao the big shot to directly skip a level and upgrade without any movement before then!] [This is insane! What kind of troop type does he have to be able to achieve this?] [Don¡¯t ask. It¡¯s got to be god-level!] ¡­ At the same time, Han Yan looked at his concrete castle and the dead body of the level four goblin that the Black Dragon had just killed. He bit his lips so hard that blood came out. He could not believe it at all! Su Hao¡¯s strength was simply terrifying. He had more than 2000 units of top-tier food, and he had upgraded by two levels. Su Hao had clearly fallen behind Han Yan the day before and the latter had clearly surpassed him! Han Yan was already able to kill a level four monster, yet he still fell behind Su Hao. ¡®Just what kind of individual is he?¡¯ Even if they all had SSS-Grade talent, the SS-level troops should have developed on the same scale. With that in mind, he narrowed his eyes and looked at the messages in his [Friend Messages] after Su Hao refused to add him. His jealousy grew even stronger. He knew that Su Hao had to be eliminated, or else Su Hao¡¯s existence would pose a great threat to his future development. At that point, the [World Announcement] was updated again! [Bold red line reminder! The invasion of darkness will begin in three days!] [When the time comes, all the territories will be rated for their ability to deal with the invasion!] [The person with the highest score within a region will receive a mystery reward!] [Special note: time is ticking away until the darkness invades! Hurry up, everyone!] The update instantly made the [World Chat Channel] even livelier! [Goodness! I can¡¯t believe this!] [So the officials have mystery gifts?!] [And it¡¯s a mystery reward for all castle lords!] [The mystery reward for the first darkness invasion must be the best and easiest to get!] [My brothers and sisters, whether we can defy the heavens and change our fate depends on this!] [In three days, it will be the start of my conquest for the Endless Continent!] [Don¡¯t be so arrogant. You ought to know that there are big shots like Su Hao, Han Yan, and Qin Shuang in our continent. We¡¯ll never stand a chance¡­] [That might not be the case!] [Although top-notch troops of A-Grade and above are powerful, they still have to rely on tactics and willpower to resist the beast tide¡­] [You¡¯re right!] [As long as we grit our teeth and persevere, we¡¯ll see who will have the last laugh.] At that very moment, all the castle lords stared at the updated information in the [World Announcement]. Their breathing quickened and their hearts filled with unease, all because of the invasion of darkness. It would definitely change the fate of many castle lords! Some people would soar to greater heights with their strength, while others would be completely annihilated and die in despair! Chapter 20 - Must Obtain the Radiant Holy Sword! Chapter 20 Must Obtain the Radiant Holy Sword! Somewhere in the boundless grassland of the Endless Continent, a charismatic man with a long red robe was leading his Golden Battle Lion as they hunted a herd of level five Wild Cows in the grasslands! Compared to the other wild monsters on the grassland, the Wild Cows moved slower and reacted slower, making it easier to hunt. In addition, the Wild Cows were large in size, allowing for the harvest of more food units and in larger quantities too. They became very suitable prey for a Golden Battle Lion. He had killed a total of nearly 20 level five Wild Cows and obtained a bountiful hunt, but he never once placed his food on the (Trading Channel]. As a result, no one knew his name or his title before that moment. Furthermore, he would choose (No) whenever he was asked to upgrade his castle, for he and his Golden Battle Lion had always been wandering around the continent to hunt for prey. He had not spent a single day in the castle ever since he had transmigrated. Even if the darkness invasion was about to arrive, he could take the opportunity to occupy other people¡¯s castles and hide. There, he could snatch the resources that the others had spent so much effort to level up, making it so much more convenient. Once it was over, he would use the accumulated resources on hand to build his castle and upgrade it to the maximum in one go. For the moment at least, his castle did not serve him any purpose. As a result, his castle was still at level one, but his energy stones and mutant crystals had accumulated to the point where he could upgrade it to level five. However, no one knew about that. Even his existence remained off the books. At that moment, he glanced at the [World Announcement Update) and shifted his gaze from the screen to the Golden Battle Lions that were running around in the distance. He then smiled faintly. Su Hao? Han Yan? Qin Shuang? He was just an ordinary man. He was confident that the mystery prize obtained through resisting the invasion of darkness would be his. Elsewhere in the endless darkness, a Holy Light Torch appeared out of nowhere! The surrounding darkness turned instantly into light. The person holding the torch was Qin Shuang. Ever since her last conversation with Su Hao, she swore that she would be strong enough to force Su Hao into taking the initiative to make her an ally. At that time, she would pretend to reject him and wear down Su Hao¡¯s spirit! She was going to hold that grudge against him! She had also read the (World Announcement Update], but she did not really care who won or lost. All that mattered to her was to be an ally of someone on her level. As a result, she had doubled her efforts during the past few days by strengthening her own power and training her White Unicorn to level five! At the same time, she had also unexpectedly obtained a Sacred Light Stone, which she fused with fire to create the Holy Light Torch! The moment the Holy Light Torch came to exist, her first thought was to enter the darkness. One of the reasons was to understand more about the darkness. Another reason was that she wanted to convey the information about the darkness to Su Hao, thus expressing her sincerity and showing that she had no bad intentions. After all, those with bad intentions would never pass on the information they knew to someone else. In addition to expressing her sincerity, she could also let Su Hao know that she had ample strength and was a worthy ally. With the Holy Light Torch in one hand, she sat on the back of her White Unicorn and walked into the darkness with about another five unicorns surrounded her She, on the other hand, could dispel the darkness as long as she held the torch. enco In the darkness, her White Unicorns encountered many wild beasts that they had never seen on the plains. were Fortunately, even though the darkness was filled with wild beasts, the ones she saw were all lower-leveled beasts that were level three at most. She did not encounter any strong monsters as a result, and after walking around, she also realized that the darkness was not barren. One could even say that everything inside was the same as the outside, except it was covered in darkness and wild beasts. There were also mountains, plains, and rivers. She was able to understand all of that in such a short time, and she immediately opened her [Friend Messages] to send Su Hao some messages! (You¡¯re Su Hao, right? Do you still remember me?] [I¡¯m Qin Shuang. I just entered the darkness with my Holy Light Torch, and to express my sincerity in befriending you, I¡¯ll report the situation inside to you in real time!] [This place is shrouded in darkness, and any creature that comes out of it is a wild beast!) [Everything inside here is the same as outside. There are also mountain ranges and rivers. There¡¯s nothing out of the ordinary here.] Back at the Holy Light Castle, Su Hao exited from the (World Announcement Update). Then, he lowered his eyes. Having been reborn, he knew what the mysterious reward for resisting the invasion of darkness was. If he remembered correctly, the mystery reward would be a huge holy object of light. There were many types of holy objects, and the first holy object reward would be the Radiant Holy Sword! However, the Radiant Holy Sword was not a sword that could be used and was instead a huge sculpture of a holy sword! Their function was to dispel evil spirits and even the malicious attacks of other lords. As long as Su Hao did not allow it, the Radiant Holy Sword¡¯s sculpture would prevent any evil spirit from appearing within a 10-kilometer radius of his territory. Even an ordinary person would not encounter any danger in the surrounding ten kilometers! As a result, he decided that he had to obtain that sacred object! It meant that he had to get the highest score during the invasion of darkness! In his previous life, Su Hao was ranked second during the first invasion, thus missing the reward completely! It had always been his regret. With his Sacred Night Bugs, he was hell-bent on winning the reward! Then, he received a message! [Message from a friend.) Su Hao saw repeated new messages in the [Friend Messages) at the lower right corner of the panel. (You have a message from a friend. Would you like to read it?] [2 messages, 3 messages, 7 messages¡­] When he saw that, Su Hao frowned slightly and opened his friend list. As soon as he saw Qin Shuang¡¯s message, he realized that he had added her as a friend. He would have forgotten all about her if he did not see it. Since he had already added her, there was no need to delete the messages and block her. With that thought, he immediately set the message to ¡®do not disturb¡¯ mode. Then, he opened his warehouse. The 2,000 units of food brought back by the return of his Sacred Night Bugs had already filled up the warehouse. His only chance to speak in the chat channel today had been used up, and he could not update his trading information a second time that day. Therefore, he had to deal with all that food promptly. As soon as he had that in mind, he took out about 1000 units of the elite level five food and gave them to his militia. As for the remaining 1000 or so units of food, they could always store them on the shelves later. Although most of the castle¡¯s defense was done by the Sacred Night Bug, the loyalty of his militia had to be maintained at all times. After a short while, the militia had eaten and drunk their fill, and the energy level of all 50 of them had greatly increased. Nearly half of the militia had even been upgraded to level two after eating high-quality ape meat! The energy value of the level two militia had increased by about 100 points, and the attack value had also increased by 50 points, meaning that his level two militia had both construction resources and the ability to defend against external enemies. It was equivalent to the ability of two level one militia. Furthermore, the militia¡¯s loyalty also increased greatly in an instant. The 80-something loyalty value had been upgraded to 90-something, and the 90-something loyalty had been directly upgraded to 100! It also meant that the chances of his militia betraying him were basically zero, while the construction speed and investment would also be several times higher than before. With that thought, Su Hao immediately ordered them to immediately start construction! The militia received the order from him and instantly continued constructing the arrow tower. Su Hao looked at everything in the castle and his eyes lowered slightly. There were less than three days left before the invasion of darkness. His territory had already developed to a relatively large scale, and the construction of the castle was slowly being built under the efforts of the militia. A level five castle, a level four arrow tower, a level two Holy Healing Spring, a level two Summoning Altar, and so on. Upgrades of such scales were currently unparalleled in the entire continent. He would also continue to let his swarm of bugs develop in the darkness concurrent to that. If he could control the number of bugs to only 100,000 before the darkness invasion, then the invasion of darkness would be a piece of cake for him when it came. The idea led Su Hao to look slowly at the Sacred Night Bugs in the Holy Healing Spring! He immediately gave the order to ¡°Set off!¡± At his command, tens of thousands of Sacred Night Bugs began chirping non-stop! The next second, they rose into the air, flew into into the darkness, and became one with it! Chapter 21 - Gift Pack Appears Again; Castle Becomes City-State! Chapter 21 Gift Pack Appears Again; Castle Becomes City-State! The blood moon has risen high in the sky, with the clouds obscuring certain parts of the moon. Tens of thousands of Sacred Night Bugs streaked across the sky. As soon as the Sacred Night Bug came into contact with the darkness, the beasts in the depths of the darkness trembled and began charging into the endless darkness! Wherever the Sacred Night Bugs went, the trees withered, the mountains and rivers dried up, and the vegetation crumbled into nothingness. The wild beasts howled as they frantically hid and fled in all directions! Unfortunately, it was all useless! The fleeing speed was not even one-ten-thousandth of the Sacred Night Bugs! No other being in the entire continent can surpass the speed of Sacred Night Bugs! They roared in pain upon contact with the Sacred Night Bugs! In an instant, the beast was reduced to mere bones! Every area that the Sacred Night Bugs passed by turned desolate! Tens of thousands of Sacred Night Bugs plundered the endless darkness with wild abandon. They became more and more excited when the place was boundlessly unknown! All wild beasts, regardless of their level, were nothing more than food for the swarm. They were barely capable of fighting against the swarm. At the same time, a large number of different species of beasts were reduced to bones, and Su Hao¡ªwho was in the Holy Light Castlereceived the rewards from the Sacred Night Bugs. [Killed a level 8 Wild Cow. Obtained 6 energy stones! 1,000 gold coins!) [Killed a level 9 Giant Ape. Obtained 3 mutant crystals! 1,500 gold coins!] [Killed a level 10 Giant Python. Obtained 100,000 gold coins, 8 energy stones, and 1 mutant crystal!] An endless stream of reward information appeared in Su Hao¡¯s vision, and the number of dead beasts in the castle were also increasing! There was an endless variety of beasts, and more continued to stack up. Even the rewards were getting richer and richer! At that moment, a dazzling golden light enveloped Su Hao¡¯s body. Moments later, a surge of energy stronger than ever before began to course into his body. When the golden light dissipated, he had already advanced to level two. Su Hao then looked at his personal information. (Castle Lord: Su Hao] (Castle Name: Holy Light Castle] (Lord Strength: Level 2) (Castle Level: Level 5 castle] (Castle Troop Type: Sacred Night Bug (unique troop type)] (Castle Buildings: Level 2 Summoning Altar x 1, Level 2 Holy Healing Spring x 1, Level 5 arrow towers x 2.] (Gold Coins: 20.33 million gold coins] (Energy Stones: 281] [Mutant Crystals: 59] The energy level of level two was more than twice that of level one, and both his resistance and health bar had doubled too! Although Su Hao was only at level two at that moment, he was already able to handle the lower-class beasts by himself. However, there was no need for Su Hao to do so, since he had the Sacred Night Bugs to do everything. Nevertheless, it was still necessary for him to level up. When Su Hao saw everything, he was convinced that he would have the highest overall score after the invasion of darkness. The rating was based on the number of wild beasts killed by the lords during the darkness invasion, as well as the sum of various attributes in the lords¡¯ personal information. Whoever had the most points would get the highest score. At that moment, another gift pack came into Su Hao¡¯s view! Su Hao lowered his gaze as soon as he saw what it was. As expected, a pay-to-win gift pack popped up when he reached level two. It was already the third gift pack that he had received before the castellans ¡®ratings even started! [999 God-level gift pack: 18.88 million!] [Resources: 10 million stacks of wood, 10 million stacks of stone, 10 million stacks of refined iron, 5 million tons of coal, 100 sets of soldier armor, 50 stacks of soldier shields and swords, 50 stacks of shovels!) [Do you want to purchase it?] [Yes/No] Su Hao¡¯s eyes widened in surprise when he saw that but there wasn¡¯t much expression on his face. The resources in the gift pack were rather abundant, and the number of each resource was 10 million sets! The implication behind such a luxurious allocation of resources meant that Su Hao would be able to build a city-state! A city-state was not an assemblage of just one castle¡ªit was a few castles! A first class city-state had a main castle and two sub-castles. The main castle was naturally the main castle lord¡¯s residence, while the sub-castle was where the lord who had surrendered to the main lord. Furthermore, after one¡¯s castle upgraded to a city-state, there would be a self-built residential area for the militia. Most importantly, one could build landmark buildings in one¡¯s city-state, and the type of landmark buildings were a prerogative for the lord to decide. Su Hao planned to build a 100-story Skyscraper Tower, as the Skyscraper Tower he built in his previous life could be used to train his troops and various other rare beasts. The Skyscraper Tower required a lot of construction materials, which required three years to complete in Su Hao¡¯s past life. However, with the one gift pack containing ten million sets of materials, it was already enough for him to build a luxury version of the Skyscraper Tower, which was luxurious because each city lord¡¯s troop type was not unique. Whenever the fight against the invasion of darkness ended, the castle lords would get a chance at the lottery. That lottery provided a chance for them to get a troop type, so it was very common for a lord to have more than ten troop types in the later stages. In his previous life, Su Hao had more than 70 units that ranged from B to SSS. Concurrent to that, the bugs continued to devour and multiply exponentially. By the time they returned, he had to have more than one Holy Healing Spring for them to rest. By then, one Holy Healing Spring would not be able to contain so many of them. With the advent of other troops in the future, Su Hao had been thinking of constructing a Skyscraper Tower. However, the materials required to build a Skyscraper Tower could easily reach up to tens of millions, so the gift pack allowed Su Hao not to worry about a lack of materials. With that in mind, Su Hao did not hesitate in the slightest and immediately chose to buy it. [Congratulations on successfully purchasing the 999 God-level pay-to-win gift pack!] (18.88 million gold coins spent!) (1.45 million gold coins remaining!) Then, countless resources appeared in the center of the castle. There were so many of them that it was difficult to even fit them into the warehouse. Upon seeing that scene, Su Hao smiled slightly and distributed all weapons to the militia. The 50 militiamen donned the white armor and were equipped with silver swords and shields, making them look so much more spirited. Beside the Holy Healing Spring, the arrow tower, and the Summoning Altar were soldiers in white armor holding weapons and tools. They did not complain at all and continued working hard to build everything! Su Hao stood with his hands behind his back and observed everything. He believed that his Holy Light City-State and Skyscraper Tower would be within reach as long as he obtained the metal, wood, water, fire, and earth elements to add to the construction of the castle before the invasion of darkness. Chapter 22 - Goblins Appear; Various Elements Obtained! Chapter 22 Goblins Appear; Various Elements Obtained! In just a few hours, his 50-strong militiamen had already built the prototype of a city-state. The main castle made of white ceramic tiles and two newly built sub-castles appeared before Su Hao¡¯s vision. At that rate, he was certain that it would not take long for the sub-castles to be completed before the Sacred Night Bugs could obtain the elements. By then, he could upgrade it again using the elements, whereupon the entire city-state would be able to shine in the dark, while the resistance and reputation of the city-state would be greatly improved too! Early that morning, the blood moon set in the west and the darkness gradually faded. In the depths of the darkness, the swarm of 50,000-strong Sacred Night Bugs traveled to another dark forest that they had never ventured deep into. A dazzling light swept through the dense forest, where dozens of creatures were seen. They were around two meters tall and possessed green skin, big eyes, big noses, as well as yellow teeth¡­ They were wearing tattered leather armor and raising all sorts of weapons¡ªsuch as wooden sticks, big knives, spears, wolf teeth, and so on-as they hopped through the dense forest. One of them was a green-skinned creature in a colorful robe. It held a staff that seemed to be like a magic staff, as well as a strange crystal that was embedded at the tip. It was waving its magic staff and releasing huge fireballs. The fireball was heading toward the Sacred Night Bugs They were wild creatures that the Sacred Night Bugs had never encountered before. However, the Sacred Night Bugs did not hesitate in the slightest and continued shuttling forward! Even though the place was covered in flames, the swarm darted through them without slowing down at all. The Sacred Night Bugs killed everything within the camp, sending the green-skinned creatures falling into pools of blood wherever the swarm passed. Not long later, the corpses of nearly ten green-skinned creatures appeared in the center of the castle. Su Hao had just woken up from his slumber and he was surprised to see the corpses outside the castle. Goblins? He was surprised that corpses outside the castle were actually goblins. Goblins were the Endless Continent¡¯s intelligent beings, and not wild monsters. It was impossible to collect food from their bodies, so the only items that could be obtained were some broken leather armor, spears, and low-level weapons such as wolf teeth clubs. However, the issue of being able to collect food was secondary. Su Hao was more worried about the fact that goblins were intelligent creatures. If the Sacred Night Bugs were to kill the goblins, it would definitely cause a commotion among their race, perhaps even spurring them to bring weapons and attack the castle. com ven Judging from the goblin corpse that Su Hao had just collected, the lowest level of these goblins were five, but that did not include the goblins with magical power. Such goblins were usually level eight and above, sometimes even surpassing level 10. If the goblins led their horde to attack the castle, even a level five castle would not be able to withstand the attack of a large number of goblins without the protection of the Sacred Night Bugs. However, the goblins had something that Su Hao wanted-elements. Based on his understanding of goblins from his previous life, some of the goblins were high-level ones with magic staffs. were Those magic staffs in their hands contained all kinds of elements, including gold, wood, water, fire, earth, light, and many others! The other castle lords might find it difficult to defeat the goblins due to their lack of strong troops, but having the Sacred Night Bugs was truly an exception! At the same time, one of the goblins that was holding a magic staff was fleeing deeper into the dark forest, with the tens of thousands of Sacred Night Bugs pursuing it closely. The goblin with the magic staff released his magic as he fled back to his tribe. About a few hundred among the tens of thousands of goblins there possessed magic staffs, which soon began to light up as they started chanting. Their magic staffs were connected. In other words, as long as one of the goblins with a magic staff was in danger, it could share its magic with the other goblins. At that moment, hundreds of level eight to 10 goblins with magic staffs led tens of thousands of other low-level goblins into the forest. At the same time, the Sacred Night Bugs came into contact with the goblin that was fleeing. Its magic staff shattered at once and its entire body died in the explosion! Before long, tens of thousands of goblins had already arrived at the battlefield. The 50,000 or so Sacred Night Bugs chirped when they saw the massive number of goblins, but rather than showing fear, they became even more excited! The black mass of bugs flew right toward them! Those goblins that wielded a magic staff began chanting! The next second, hundreds of fiery light, water light, golden light, and other different spells were concentrated into their magic staffs, which was then directed to the swarm! The magic power of goblins was more lethal, especially when it came to high-level goblins with magic power. In just an instant, hundreds of Sacred Night Bugs were attacked by the magic. Some of the worms were drowned by the water light, while others were burned to death by the fire. Alas, the goblins were caught by surprise because of the Sacred Night Bugs¡¯ ability to multiply and devour without limit! Only a few hundred out of the 50,000-strong Sacred Night Bugs were injured-an insignificant number indeed! The next second, thousands of low-level goblins were devoured by the Sacred Night Bugs! The 50,000 Sacred Night Bugs began multiplying on the spot! 50,000 became 60,000; 60,000 became 70,000! The goblins¡¯ hands trembled and they took a step back. Rather than giving up, however, they raised their magic staffs and chanted again! On that occasion, nearly 10,000 goblins raised their weapons and charged at the Sacred Night Bugs! At the same time, hundreds of magic balls were launched at the bug swarm too! The goblins brandished their swords and launched their magic balls in an attempt to destroy the swarm of bugs, but the next second, the swords in their hands were devoured one after another and the magic balls were all destroyed! Nearly 10,000 goblins were devoured, and their blood filled the entire battlefield! The swarm of bugs multiplied again after eating their fill! 70,000 became 80,000; 80,000 became 100,000! The goblins¡¯ eyes widened and their hearts trembled as they saw the number of bugs increase exponentially yet again! A blood-curdling scream suddenly rang out from the goblins, and they immediately darted back to their tribe after seeing the situation! For a moment, every corner of the entire forest was filled with green figures! However, it did not take long for all the goblins to fall in a pool of blood! Back at the castle, over 10,000 goblin corpses had appeared. Su Hao¡¯s face remained expressionless, as everything was within his expectations. Anything that came into contact with the bugs¡ªbe it wild beasts or intelligent creatures¡ªcould never escape from the bugs¡¯ claws. The goblin corpses were then collected. Su Hao¡¯s eyes widened slightly as soon as he saw the various elements. As expected, the goblins did possess a myriad of elements! Chapter 23 - Castle Upgraded to Level One City-State! Chapter 23 Castle Upgraded to Level One City-State! Su Hao collected everything, and the total amount of items acquired included 1,349 low-cost weapons, armors, and swords, as well as 116 elements. Among the 116 elements were gold, wood, water, fire, earth, and light, each of which numbered around 20 or so. He also obtained 196 energy stones and 37 mutant crystals. Su Hao chose one out of all the other element types¡ªa light element energy stone of the highest level in both energy and grade. For a level five city-state wanted to break through the shackles of level five and reach level six, 200 energy stones, 30 mutant crystals, and 10 sets of elements were required. At that moment, the total number of items in Su Hao¡¯s warehouse were 207 energy stones, 40 mutant crystals, and 116 various elements. The conditions for the upgrade had been met. In less than a second, a golden light flashed! A line of text then popped up before Su Hao. (Congratulations! The lord has met the conditions for an upgrade!] (Castle upgrade to level six requires 200 energy stones, 30 sets of mutant crystals, and 10 sets of elements!) [Please choose an element to upgrade!] (Do you want to upgrade?] [Yes/No] ¡°Yes! I¡¯ll choose the light element!¡± Su Hao commanded! The castle before him started to change, and when the foundations of the other two sub-castles were upgraded, they soon became complete sub-castles, both of which were about 20 meters high. Meanwhile, the area of the main castle had expanded to nearly 200 square meters wide, and its height had also increased to more than 40 meters! The building also reached the eighth floor! The first floor¡¯s warehouse had also expanded from being able to store nearly 1000 units of food to nearly 2000 units of food! Finally, the ceramic tiles on the walls of each castle¡ªwhether it was the main castle or the sub-castle-were all made with delicate patterns! In the blink of an eye, a somewhat magnificent level one city-state had manifested in front of Su Hao. The militia beside him were also shocked by the scene. They raised their weapons and tools while shouting, ¡°Whoa! A city-state!¡± ¡°A level one city-state!¡± ¡°All hail our Lord! Your castle has become a city-state in less than a few days! You¡¯re second to none in the whole of this Endless Continent!¡± ¡°Agreed! We will forever submit to our Lord!¡± There was an overflowing delight in the eyes of the militia! What surprised them even more was that the small city-state made up of a main castle and two sub-castles was actually glowing! It could shine in the dark night, like an indestructible star of light that rose in the endless darkness! [Congratulations on leveling up!) (Level: Level one city-state) (200 energy stones, 30 mutant crystals, and 10 sets of light elements have been used!] [Remaining: 7 energy stones, 10 sets of mutant crystals, more than 80 sets of elements!) [Congratulations, your sphere of influence has been increased to five kilometers!] [All resources within the territory belong to the castle lord!] (Your troops and attacking structures will automatically attack and defend outside creatures that have entered the castle¡¯s sphere of influence without permission.) (Your castle¡¯s defense has been doubled!) (Your castle¡¯s durability has been increased by three times!) (Your castle¡¯s influence and reputation in the endless mainland have been greatly increased!) At the same time, in front of a level four concrete castle. A slightly chubby castle lord was currently gnawing on ape meat with great relish as he looked at the castle with a smile. ¡°This meat isn¡¯t too bad, but I¡¯ll be able to kill it myself in the future. It¡¯s just elite-grade ape meat, after all. Once the invasion of darkness is over, my abilities will definitely be greatly improved. Hmph. That Su Hao guy is only a small step ahead of me! Now that I¡¯ve upgraded my castle to level four, I won¡¯t face any problems when the invasion comes!¡± As soon as he ended his sentence, a (World Announcement Update] popped up in his field of vision. [Congratulations to the Holy Light Castle for becoming a level one city-state!] (Castle Lord: Su Hao] Once the announcement had been read, the piece of ape flesh fell to the ground. Then, the castle lord whose castle had just reached level four wiped the corners of his eyes with a dumbfounded expression. He blinked and looked at the World Announcement) in disbelief. The shock was so great that his eyeballs nearly popped out of their sockets! ¡°How is that even possible?!¡± It was a city-state, for goodness sake! His was just a concrete castle! He could not believe it at all! It was bewildering to know that there existed a god-like individual who could upgrade to a city-state in just four to five days! In an instant, he and the other lords went into a frenzy within the World Chat Channel]! [I don¡¯t believe this! I¡¯ve been stuck at level 3 for so long, and I¡¯ll need 30 energy stones if I want to level up again. 6 is already difficult to get, let alone 30!) [I had to go through so much effort just to raise my castle to level 4! How did Su Hao do it?] (This is terrifying! Just what kind of army does he have that he could upgrade to a city-state so quickly?] [Dear heavens! Does that mean we can join Big Shot Su Hao¡¯s territory?] (Say no more! I¡¯m going to bring all my troops to his territory! I¡¯d rather be his citizen than wait to be killed in a level 2 castle!) (Let¡¯s go together!) Time was ticking away, and the invasion of darkness was getting closer. Some of the lords who were too slow to level up slowly had no other choice but to seek refuge with Su Hao! As the name ¡®city-state¡¯ suggested, people were the foremost resource needed to establish it. There was no time like the present to join Su Hao¡¯s territory! For a brief period, many lords in the chat area were rushing to join Su Hao¡¯s territory and become one of his people. Some of them even left their territory in groups because they were willing to face danger outside just to obtain Su Hao¡¯s protection. Some were rather curious about the kind of troops Su Hao had and how he came to have such tremendous ability. Su Hao did not even bother to look at the chat contents because none of those things had anything to do with him. What concerned him was how to earn more gold coins. As a result, he immediately put the rest of the elements and weapons into his warehouse. In order to avoid them from going to waste, Su Hao planned to exchange those weapons for gold coins. However, trading elements was a no-go. After all, elements were a resource that none of the lords had access to before the invasion of darkness. It was difficult for them to upgrade their castles to level three, and they had not come into contact with existences above level five yet. After the first darkness invasion, all the creatures that the lords had to deal with would level up one after another. By then, elements would slowly be popularized. Even if they were trading elements in advance, lords who had level five castles and below had no necessity for them. After all, no one in the entire continent had reached level five apart from Su Hao. In addition, the gold coins possessed by the other lords were almost all collected by Su Hao during the past few days of transactions. Su Hao felt that the lords would continue to kill monsters and collect gold coins from the corpses after the darkness invasion. When all that was over, he would be able to gain a huge profit! The sale of weapons could help him earn him some money as well, since they more mostly just scrap metal to him. He had more advanced weapons in his warehouse for his militia to use. Meanwhile, the low-level weapons were a lifesaver for the other lords. Before the invasion of darkness, all the militia under the castle lord¡¯s command probably did not even have a decent sword. Weapons were therefore a necessity, so even low-level weapons could still be sold for a fortune. With that thought, he put up all his weapons for sale in the (Trading Channel)! Chapter 24 - Destroying the Goblin Tribe! Chapter 24 Destroying the Goblin Tribe! [10,000 for a set of weapons.] (A set of weapons consists of defensive equipment, a sword, and so on.] (3225 sets of weapons available.] As soon as the low-level weapons were put up for sale, everything was snatched up and everyone was talking about it! [I didn¡¯t expect Big Shot Su Hao to start selling weapons!) [It might not be him.) [It has to be! Weapons are useless to him.] (Sounds like an awesome deal, but I really don¡¯t have any gold coins left! I used them all to buy food! I feel so depressed right now!] (I still have 10,000 gold coins left! Just enough to buy a set! Thank you Big Shot Su Hao for being so generous at this critical moment!) [Indeed! There¡¯s another two more days to the invasion of darkness. My territory is in need of these weapons!) Everything turned out as Su Hao expected. Although the gold coins in the hands of the lords were basically all robbed by Su Hao, they were still expressing their praise and gratitude while using all the remaining gold coins to buy weapons. We It did not take long for all the weapons to be sold out. Su Hao earned 3.25 million gold coins in total. Those gold coins were probably the last remaining batch of the lords. Although it was not much, it had already reached Su Hao¡¯s expectations. He had 3.25 million gold coins left in his treasury, and in addition 3.52 million from his transactions the other day, he came to a grand total of 6.77 million gold coins. Su Hao felt that the city lords would be able to kill more monsters after the invasion of darkness. At that time, they would be able to obtain quite a lot of gold coins, which they could then exchange for other things. There was still plenty of time before business mode officially started in two months. Based on the current progress, his city-state could continue to level up. He might even be able to accept subjects who had come to seek refuge, thus strengthening his city-state even further. Once the invasion of darkness was over, Su Hao would still rank above all the other lords even if the others had made progress, meaning he could still offer up some items that everyone else did not have. When the time came, Su Hao was confident that he could accumulate more gold coins. All of a sudden, a notification was heard. (Your troop type has discovered the goblin tribe¡¯s base.] (Please choose if you want to destroy it.] (Yes/No] Su Hao narrowed his gaze when he saw that. There was no point in destroying it since the goblin tribe was no longer of any use to him. After all, he could no longer harvest any resources other than weapons, elements, energy stones, and mutant crystals. Killing those goblins would not bring him any tangible benefit. As a mighty castle lord however, he needed to think of the big picture. Goblins were intelligent creatures. If they were not immediately killed, they would lead the stronger, recovered goblins to attack the Holy Light Castle. In addition, the Holy Light Castle was extremely eye-catching in the dark after being upgraded with the light element. While its power had increased along with the upgrade, it had also attracted the attention of other lords and beasts. To keep his castle safe, Su Hao had no choice but to destroy the goblin tribe! ¡°Destroy!¡± Su Hao commanded! Three kilometers away, more than 100,000 Sacred Night Bugs had blown up a stone tablet in the wooden tower! As the stone tablet was destroyed, the buildings in the goblin tribe began to collapse! Eventually, everything was devoured by the black swarm of frenzied, fearless Sacred Night Bugs. The goblin tribe was finally reduced to ruins! [Congratulations, Castle Lord. Your Sacred Night Bug troop has destroyed the goblin tribe¡¯s core. You have obtained an additional 100 energy stones!) [You have eliminated the goblin tribe!) (Your castle¡¯s influence and reputation on the endless continent have been increased!] (Special reminder: due to the continuous increase in influence and reputation, more and more local forces in the endless continent are paying attention to your Holy Light Castle!] Su Hao remained expressionless when he saw the announcement. He knew very well that the various forces were slowly approaching his Holy Light Castle from all directions. Some of them were friends while others were foes, but whether they were friend or foe, they would all end up as an obedient citizen of his territory in the face of all the Sacred Night Bugs. At the same time, the head of his militia walked over and knelt down on one knee. He placed his right fist on his left chest and looked up at Su Hao while greeting respectfully, ¡°My Lord! The construction of the Skyscraper Tower has been completed! Would you like to come and take a look?¡± Su Hao, who was standing with his hands behind his back, replied with a faint ¡°Sure.¡± He turned to look at the Skyscraper Tower in front of the main castle and saw a tall building that touched the sky! A building of just over 100 square meters could nurture a large number of troops in the future. It both reduced space and saved space too. He could also train different numbers of troops at the same time, thus killing two birds with one stone. Moreover, each level was about 100 square meters, so if he were to breed the Sacred Night Bugs, one level was enough to hold tens of thousands! For any other large troop type, a single level would probably be able to hold a few hundred of them! Such a practical and magnificent landmark building was completed in less than a day, prompting a smile from Su Hao. He placed his hands behind his back and began walking toward the Summoning Altar. Everything was ready. Only the small details were lacking It was time for his Sacred Night Bugs to have a good time with the other lords¡¯ troops. ¡­ Within a radius of five miles from the Holy Light Castle, a red-robed man riding a level eiht Golden Battle Lion was holding a telescope and scanning the surroundings. Protecting him were about eight or so level seven Golden Battle Lions. His lions exuded their aura in all directions wherever he went. All the wild beasts that tried to attack him in close range were then bitten to death by the Golden Battle Lion! The man was unsurprised by their ability, and he believed that they were even strong enough to subdue a castle. Gu Fei was the man¡¯s name, and after he had transmigrated, he had received the SS-Grade Golden Battle Lion troop type. From that moment on, his line of thinking deviated from all the other lords¡ªwhat he wanted to do was not to develop slowly, but to wait for others to develop before plundering everything for himself! At that moment, the Holy Light Castle was his target. He looked into the distance with his telescope and was attracted by the glowing castle five miles away. Through the telescope, he ascertained that there were two sub-castles beside the castle, and even a tower so tall that it touched the sky. He then put down his telescope slowly as a sharp glint of light flashed in his eyes. As he gave his Golden Battle Lion a pat on the back, he smiled faintly and said, ¡°I¡¯ll leave it to you. This city will be our future residence!¡± ¡°Roar!¡± The eight Golden Battle Lions roared in unison at the end of his sentence. That proud roar seemed to be an advance celebration of victory! Moments later, they all began charging in the direction of the Holy Light Castle! Chapter 25 - Be Not Afraid! Were On the Same Side! Chapter 25 Be Not Afraid! We¡¯re On the Same Side! Elsewhere in the dark forest, a group of people were moving forward in spite of the darkness. They were surrounded by the cries of beasts. Nearly a dozen lords were leading their own militia and troops toward Su Hao¡¯s Holy Light Castle. Inside that pitch-black environment where not even their own fingers could be seen, they all trembled with fear and struggled to take each step! After a short while, four or five lords and their militia had been attacked by the wild beasts, but did not dampen their resolve to give up on their target. They knew that they had no way out, and the only option they had was to move forward. It was only by moving forward that they might still have a chance of survival. If they retreated, death would almost certainly come knocking on their door. At that moment, about one-third of the lords and militia were already heavily injured! They supported each other while walking toward the castle. Since everything was dark, they could only rely on their troops¡¯ sense of smell to locate the direction. Everyone was already exhausted. They panted heavily while discussing their situation. ¡°Su Hao¡¯s castle is so far away, and I¡¯m glad I came earlier! Any later and I¡¯d probably turn to ruins along with my shabby castle when the invasion of darkness arrives.¡± ¡°Do you think Su Hao will take us in? I¡¯m just scared this whole trip will be in vain!¡± ¡°Yeah. I followed everyone here out of impulse. I actually tried adding Bg Shot Su Hao as a friend since the very beginning, but he never accepted my request. That¡¯s part of the reason why I feel he might not be willing to take us in.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t care! I¡¯m willing to be his slave! I¡¯m sure he¡¯ll take us in on that condition!¡± ¡°Besides, the world outside the castle is treacherous. If we didn¡¯t travel together, I think I would¡¯ve died a few hundred meters away from the castle already.¡± ¡°But if we keep going, we¡¯ll probably turn into a pile of bones. There are too many unknowns ahead, and more than a third of us are injured already. If this continues, we might¡ª¡± All of a sudden, one of the lords in the crowd pointed to a place not far away and shouted, ¡°Everyone! Look! We¡¯re almost there!¡± The rest of them looked in the direction that the lord was pointing at! What they saw was a ray of light in the darkness that illuminated a path for them! They then looked up and marveled at a towering skyscraper that shimmered as it touched the sky. The castle and the sub-castles were all shimmering with a strange light in the dark. Magnificent, bright, and imposing, were the only words that appeared in their mind when they saw the castle. At the same time, there were no longer any howling beasts around them. It was as if all the wild beasts within a five-mile radius of the castle had disappeared the moment they stepped into this area. Aside from that, the pitch-black darkness was no longer pitch-black as light was shining everywhere. They could see the trees, rivers, and rocks in the surroundings clearly. The scene was nothing short of unbelievable! At this moment, all the lords need not rely on their troops¡¯ sense of smell to move forward. Instead, they were moving forward in the direction of the light. Meanwhile, the lord who had just been trembling from the howling monsters took a breath, puffed his chest out, and continued to walk forward. Everyone was shocked by the safe and bright atmosphere! ¡°Goodness! This is the first time I¡¯ve seen a glowing castle!¡± ¡°It¡¯s so beautiful! What we¡¯re seeing is just the tip of the iceberg, but I¡¯m already captivated by its decor and aura!¡± NO ¡°Didn¡¯t you notice? From the moment we stepped into this area, there were no longer any roaring wild beasts! This is unbelievable!¡± ¡°Is this the function of a city-state? Why is it glowing!¡± ¡°I¡¯m afraid that only Big Shot Su Hao would know about this. We¡¯re all good-for-nothings who haven¡¯t even upgraded our castle to levels two or three¡­¡± At that moment, roars could be heard from all around them! Those roars were accompanied by the sound of footsteps from wild beasts! In a flash, all of the lords took a huge step back in fear and huddled together at once! ¡°Where did that roar come from!¡± ¡°I thought it¡¯s supposed to be safe now? Why did we hear such terrifying roars?¡± ¡°Who is it? Show yourself!¡± ¡°Shh! Keep quiet!¡± All of a sudden, a man¡¯s bold laughter came from nearby. ¡°Be not afraid, everyone. We¡¯re all on the same side. These aren¡¯t wild beasts. They¡¯re my troops!¡± Gu Fei, who was wearing a red robe and riding on the back of a Golden Battle Lion, slowly made his way out from the bushes. He had discovered the group of lords making their way toward Su Hao just moments ago, so he wanted to find out whether they came to pledge allegiance to Su Hao or to attack. If it was the former, he might be able to feign weakness and hide in the crowd. That would allow him to enter the castle together and analyze the inside before attacking. If it was the latter, and they were all on the same side, it would be much better to have strength in numbers. With that thought, he walked out of the darkness in high spirits. The lords heaved a sigh of relief almost immediately when they realized that it was a rather good-looking lord instead of a wild beast. The crowd began expressing their opinions. ¡°You nearly scared me to death. I thought it was some wild beast!¡± ¡°Which region are you from, though? Why are you here?¡± ¡°Yeah. Are you like us too? Did you come here to seek refuge with Su Hao?¡± Gu Fei¡¯s eyes narrowed and a cold glint flashed by. It was the former¡­ His discordant expression disappeared in a flash. In place of it was a smile, and he then said in a friendly tone, ¡°Yeah. I saw from the World Announcement that Su Hao¡¯s castle has been upgraded to a city-state. I¡¯d like to rely on him too.¡± With his reply, the lords suggested, ¡°Since we¡¯re all on the same side, why don¡¯t we go together?¡± Back at the Holy Light Castle, Su Hao stood in front of the castle with his hands behind his back. His expression remained hidden from view. At that moment, the leader of his militia provided him with a report! ¡°My Lord, a group of about fifty people from the local forces has appeared within a ten-mile radius. Would you like to accept them?¡± Su Hao narrowed his eyes and smiled faintly when the militiaman posed that question. ¡®Will you be among the fifty or so people, Gu Fei?¡¯ With that question in mind, a trace of coldness flashed in his eyes as he said to the head of the militia, ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°Understood!¡± He had crossed paths with Gu Fei in his previous life. Gu Fei was the only person in the entire Endless Continent who had gone against the trend, and the man¡¯s strength was comparable to the previous life¡¯s Su Hao. There was one time Gu Fei even seized Su Hao¡¯s territory and claimed the title of king. However, Su Hao had the Sacred Night Bugs after being reborn. Gu Fei would not be given a chance to succeed! Chapter 26 - Only I Can Seize This Territory! Chapter 26 Only I Can Seize This Territory! Su Hao had just finished pondering over Gu Fei when he looked in the direction of the Summoning Altar. A wisp of white smoke floated out, and at that moment, more than 100,000 Sacred Night Bugs were emerging from the Summoning Altar. Their overall number had doubled from when they previously left the castle. Most of them were uninjured, and it seemed that even a level 10 goblin was easily crushable in their eyes. Su Hao immediately sent the summoned Sacred Night Bugs to rest in the Skyscraper Tower. He knew that the Sacred Night Bugs would not be able to rest long before they would begin to ¡®satiate themselves¡¯ again. Another point to note was that those lords would not have come all the way there to surrender to him if they had upgraded their castle to level five. Based on the current development of the other lords, none of them had upgraded their castle to level five. After all, they would know the existence and use of elements once they reached that level. Considering the fact that Su Hao was reborn, he also remembered that almost all the lords had been upgraded to a city-state after the first invasion of darkness. By that time, level one city-states popped like mushrooms after the rain. It was only after reaching the level of a city-state would an underground tunnel be opened between city-states. That underground passage was used for the convenience of those within the two city-states, whether it was the militia, the soldiers, or the lord. At the ends of these passages were buttons for each city-state. There were three colors to the buttons, namely red, green, and blue. Red represented conquest, green represented submission, and blue represented peace. As the designation suggested, it was the relationship that had been decided between both sides after a discussion. Those who wish to attack would press the red button, and the troops or militia in that city-state would use that passage to attack another. Choosing the blue button meant peace, where both sides would not interfere with each other! If the green button was pressed, the castle lord and everything in the city-state would become the soldiers and people of the other party. Their city-state would then disappear, and every time they successfully resisted the invasion of darkness, the lucky draw would naturally be given to the lord of the castle that they had submitted to. In other words, if 10 lords chose to submit to the same lord and everyone had successfully resisted the invasion of darkness, the main lord would get 11 lottery chances. At that moment, the lords who came there could not be designated as friend or foe from the outset. Su Hao knew that only those who were willing to come to him were, in all likelihood, unable to make good progress in the early stages. Lords like them whom he took in would be obedient and grateful to him for his gesture, resulting in a very high loyalty toward him. However, Su Hao had already expected that some lords might have other ideas. If they wanted to rebel, he would definitely send the Sacred Night Bugs to toy with them. Then, he would give them a good beating until they begged for mercy and were willing to submit. If he took these people in before the invasion of darkness, he would naturally be able to win the mystery award-the Radiant Holy Sword! He would also get a lot of lottery chances. If on the off chance that someone as capable as Gu Fei was among them, he was confident that he could still take them down. With that line of reasoning, he had no reason not to accept someone who came to seek shelter with him. As he thought of that, the militia leader immediately ran over and panted. ¡°My Lord! They¡¯re here at the city gate! Should we open the city gate to welcome them?¡± ¡°Go ahead!¡± Gu Fei sat on his lion and listened-without offering his opinion-as the crowd discussed Su Hao. ¡°You heard it, didn¡¯t you? The Big Shot who exchanged food for gold coins is Su Hao.¡± ¡°No way! Are you for real?¡± ¡°And he killed the goblin tribe not too long ago!¡± ¡°Goblins? I¡¯ve only heard of them in legends. Goblins are at least level five and above, and they can reach as high as level ten! How did he even kill them?! What kind of terrifying troop does he have?¡± ¡°Level five? My wild rabbit troop can¡¯t even kill a grade three wild beast, let alone level five or even a level ten! It¡¯s terrifying. Simply terrifying!¡± ¡°I thought it was all fake, but I guess I have no choice but to believe it! If Big Shot Su Hao has a citystate like that, a class ten goblin is a piece of cake for him!¡± As the crowd engaged in a heated discussion, their admiration and respect for Su Hao continued to grow! Even Gu Fei was getting more and more curious about Su Hao after hearing their conversation. He could not imagine that there was someone other than himself who could fight against wild beasts that were on level five to level 10. Although his Golden Battle Lions were level eight at most, they had already begun to kill level ten beasts. At that moment, he began growing more and more curious about what kind of troop Su Hao had that could directly kill an entire goblin tribe. Although he did not know if this was true or false, it was highly likely that a castle lord who had leveled up to such a scale would have every capacity to kill an entire tribe. The truth of the matter, however, would only be known after he met Su Hao. Excitement began brewing in his heart when he thought of that. If he could seize Su Hao¡¯s castle, then those seized resources and his own would practically make him a god in the entire Endless Continent. Everyone arrived at the gate of the city-state, but strangely, the gates had already been opened! It was as if Su Hao had been waiting for everyone! However, the city-state was surprisingly empty. Not even a single troop or militia was in sight. Everyone was dumbfounded and started discussing among themselves. ¡°What¡¯s going on? Why isn¡¯t there anyone in such a large city-state? Where¡¯s Big Shot Su Hao!¡± ¡°Yeah, I don¡¯t even see a single troop! Isn¡¯t it a waste of effort to come all the way here just to submit to him?¡± ¡°Could he have brought his troops out? Why don¡¯t we wait for a while? Let¡¯s not enter just yet. It¡¯ll be rude.¡± ¡°Have you ever thought that maybe he already left? Now that we¡¯re here, we can take over the place!¡± ¡°Hey! How can you think like that? We¡¯re here to pledge allegiance to Lord Su Hao. How can we do such a thing?¡± ¡°Why not? Isn¡¯t it obvious that there¡¯s no such rule in this barren world to say that ¡®first come, first served¡¯? Being polite won¡¯t get you anywhere!¡± The crowd was in a heated discussion, but the discussion was basically divided into two opinions. One was to wait for Su Hao to return before making a decision. The other was to take over the place, shut the gates, and reign there like a king. At that moment, Gu Fei narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms as he sat on his mount. He glanced ahead at the empty city-state. As he listened to the discussions of those foolish lords, he felt that everyone was stupid. When it comes to submitting to people, only others could submit to him! When it came to seizing the place, he was the only one with the right to do so! Whether or not Su Hao just happened to go out or had abandoned the city-state, it was a good time to clinch the opportunity and seize his territory! Since he had already made his decision, he turned to the Golden Battle Lions around him and commanded, ¡°Attack!¡± Chapter 27 - Humblest Greetings, My Lord! Chapter 27 Humblest Greetings, My Lord! In a flash, several of his high-leveled Golden Battle Lions marched towards the castle with a majestic stride! As for the remaining Golden Battle Lions, they charged toward the lords beside him! Everyone had a look of surprise when they saw that! ¡°What is he doing?!¡± ¡°Attack, Fatty Blue Warrior! If you don¡¯t, I¡¯ll be bitten to death by this lion!¡± ¡°Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh! Does he want to seize control over Su Hao¡¯s territory and kill us too?¡± ¡°Hey! You on the lion! You should¡¯ve said so earlier! I would¡¯ve gone with you! Dealing with everything alone isn¡¯t going to be easy!¡± The group¡¯s troops were all fleeing for their lives. Some were bitten to death by the Golden Battle Lion, while others who tried to join Gu Fei¡¯s group ended up being attacked instead. Everyone in the castle had different thoughts! Some of the lords saw that the situation was turning awry and dashed to the warehouse to take whatever they could! Some still shouted, ¡°Su Hao hasn¡¯t returned yet! You can¡¯t do this!¡± Some of them were crying for help because their troops had been injured by the Golden Battle Lion! In short, the scene was extremely chaotic, and everyone scrambled everywhere! Gu Fei, however, was the only one who was watching everything coldly. Had he known earlier that chaos would ensue, he would have gotten rid of everyone along the journey. It would have saved him the trouble of having to take action at the last minute. However, it was still not too late to do so, for he could not possibly pass on that once-in-a-millenium opportunity. The empty might be empty, but it had such magnificent buildings and a well-stocked warehouse. His eyes were filled with delight as he glanced coldly at the frightened lords being attacked by the Golden Battle Lions. All of a sudden, the gate slammed shut at that precise moment! Moments later, a mass of darkness appeared in the sky along with a shrill cry! More than 100,000 Sacred Night Bugs came charging toward them from the highest floor of the Skyscraper Tower! Everyone shouted when they saw that! ¡°Run!¡± ¡°What is this!!¡± ¡°There¡¯s so many of them!¡± No one could escape, as the bugs scattered in all directions! The lords had fled to the tops and corners of the walls, and there was almost nowhere else to escape! To their surprise, however, they soon realized that the dark mass of bugs was not targeting them! Instead, they were targeting the lords who wanted to take over the city and rob its resources! The lord who had just gathered all kinds of food from the warehouse was running around in a panicked expression! His troops merely stood beside him, watching as he was besieged by the swarm of bugs! Meanwhile, gu fei¡¯s eyes darkened. The situation had gone south! It was a trap! He immediately yelled for the surrounding Golden Battle Lions to dodge the bugs, but for some reason, none of the lions were listening to his orders due to the sheer might of the Sacred Night Bugs! Furthermore, the lions were fleeing in all directions, as if they were facing an unprecedented horror. They continued to howl, but their roars were unlike before¡ªthey sounded more agonized than excited! The next second, the Sacred Night Bugs charged wildly at the level eight Golden Battle Lion! The moment they came into contact with the Golden Battle Lion, it was enveloped by a whole entire swarm. The next second, that level eight Golden Battle Lion had turned into a skeleton. Gu Fei¡¯s heart trembled the moment he saw his highest-leveled mount turn into a pile of bones! He stood rooted to the ground with a dazed expression. ¡®How is that even possible?! My troop is SS-Grade! No troop or beast had ever defeated my troop! He could even easily deal with a level 10 Giant Python in the past! An SS-Grade troop type should not have faced such an end! He stood rooted to the ground and was unable to think. Even so, he immediately continued to give orders after recovering from the shock! ¡°Continue!¡± However, the rest of the level seven Golden Battle Lions were rooted to the ground, and even their roars became as soft as chirping birds. The troops of all the other lords shrank into a ball at that moment and did not even dare to escape. All they did was freeze and cower, as if they were already waiting for their impending death! At that moment, the 100,000 or Sacred Night Bugs seemed to have stopped attacking. Rather, they flapped their wings and hovered in the air. Everyone who was present there was shocked by the scene! ¡°What kind of troop is this? how could they devour a level eight Golden Battle Lion alive? A few seconds was all it took to turn the lion into a pile of bones!¡± ¡°I was scared to death! I thought I was going to die!¡± ¡°Big Shot Su Hao! Su Hao, My Lord! We¡¯re not enemies! We¡¯re here to seek refuge with you! I know you¡¯re nearby, please let us go!¡± Gu Fei could only smile helplessly when he understood what happened. It turned out that Su Hao was waiting for their true colors to be exposed so that he could discern all the lords¡¯ intentions in the shortest time possible. It became easy to distinguish those who wanted to become his citizens from those whose malicious intentions were to rebel and seize his territory.. After all, people would only lose their rationality and reveal their true self in the face of desire. Su Hao, on the other hand, stood behind the scenes and watched quietly as they lost their sense of propriety. He had done everything without needing to do anything To think that the Endless Continent would have a lord with such a powerful troop and such extraordinary intelligence! Gu Fei accepted his loss. After acknowledging his defeat, he sighed silently, straightened his back, and lowered his head slightly while speaking in the direction of the entrance gate, ¡°Please come out, My Lord. I accept my defeat.¡± As soon as he concluded his sentence, the tightly shut gate opened from the outside! Everyone could see Su Hao walking in with a cold face. Behind him were more than 50 tall militiamen, all of whom were wearing armor and carrying weapons. Both he and his militiamen walked in with solemn expressions! Upon seeing that, everyone knelt down on one knee and placed their right hand on their left chest. They called out in unison, ¡°Humblest greetings, My Lord!¡± Meanwhile, Gu Fei merely lowered his head and gave the man a slight nod. Su Hao glanced at the crowd. His eyes were profoundly icy, as if his heart was completely frozen. One could feel as though anyone who came into his line of sight would meet a terrible end. The second his eyes glanced at Gu Fei¡¯s, Gu Fei felt his heart tremble and a chill instantly ran down his spine! He never expected Su Hao¡¯s aura to be so powerful! If he did not submit soon, his life might come to an end! With this thought, he took a deep breath and clenched his fists. Seconds later, he held his breath, knelt down on one knee, and placed his clenched right fist on his left chest. ¡°Humblest greetings, My Lord!¡± Chapter 28 - The Invasion of Darkness! Chapter 28 The Invasion of Darkness! The next morning, all the other lordsincluding Gu Fei-woke up in their own rooms. Their troops had also been trained in the Skyscraper Tower. However, their mood was far from normal because they were all feeling nervous due to the impending invasion of darkness! All of a sudden, a bone-piercing cold wind swept past the horizon and dark clouds appeared in the sky! The entire area was filled with the stench of corpses! The smell was getting increasingly stronger and it was absolutely suffocating! Countless red monsters were swarming over like a tide! There seemed to be no end to them as they came in waves and surged in all directions! There were wounds all over the monsters, and black blood was flowing out of them! The vegetation was devoured in a frenzy and they left behind a barren land wherever they went! At the same time, all the lords who had sensed the impending invasion of darkness had already done their best to prepare for the materials. However, there were many territories In the entire region whose defense was not up to par. Some of them only had one or two civilians and did not even have a sword tower, and the entire territory was pitifully small-only about ten square meters. Others had dozens of sword towers, with 40 to 50 civilians and more than 100 square meters of land. The former was often the majority, while the latter was pitifully few. Lords with castles of such grand scales appear only rarely among many of the overlords! The lords who had been ravaged by the invasion of darkness were seeking help in the (World Chat Channel]! (My castle wall has been broken down. All I have in my territory is a sword tower, and it¡¯s only barely holding on!The monsters are about to attack my castle. What should i do?!) (Save me! I don¡¯t want to die!] (Can someone save me, please! I¡¯d rather give up my territory to you! I just want to live! I¡¯m begging you! I can be your soldier!) [My family was just devoured by the monsters, and all I did was hide underground without making a sound! The situation is desperate and helpless!] Many lords cried out for help in the channel! At the same time, many areas of land were covered in remains. The red monster was devouring the sword towers on the castle like a maggot. A lord who was as thin as a stick rushed out of his castle and saw all the buildings on his territory being devoured by the monster! His entire body trembled in fear as he looked at the mass of monsters rushing toward him. The fear frightened him so much that he was left stunned! His pupils contracted sharply, and before he could even make his next move, the large group of red monsters had already swallowed him up. In less than a second, he had turned into white bones! At the same time, on a piece of land that was more than 100 square meters in size, a chubby lord with twin beards was hiding inside his level four castle. His fat body was curled up under the table and his whole head was buried between his legs. His territory was rich, vast, and had four level two arrow towers. At that moment, the arrow tower was shooting arrows at the monsters that were rushing in from the outside! 40 to 50 civilians had been ordered to station outside the castle. The civilians held their swords and shields to protect the castle from the onslaught, but they failed to resist the monster¡¯s sheer destruction. After all, humans were nothing more than ants in front of those monsters. In a few moments, the civilians were either killed or attempted to run away! The fleeing civilians knocked repeatedly on the castle door and shouted, ¡°My Lord! Please save us!¡± Then, one of the civilians broke a window! Seconds later, their cries for help were drowned out as they were swallowed by the mouths of those red monsters. All of a sudden, the door to the lord¡¯s room in the castle was kicked open by a red monster that appeared out of nowhere! The lord turned around and his eyes were filled with horror! His first instinct was to crawl into the corner, and in doing so, he had left a wet mark on the floor. As he crawled, he yelled out, ¡°Don¡¯t kill me! Don¡¯t kill me! No!¡± The next second, the red monster opened its bloody mouth wide and swallowed him whole, without even leaving behind his bones! Within a few seconds, countless red monsters had ravaged the 100 square meter territory. Even though there were four sword towers and a castle that was reinforced with iron, the monsters still devoured it all in the end. The invasion of darkness turned the entire world into a living hell! People either died or suffered serious injuries! Just as countless lords were collapsing and begging for help, the other lords in Su Hao¡¯s city-state were resting in their rooms while eating the food that Su Hao prepared for them. Su Hao, on the other hand, was eating hotpot in his city-state. A strong aroma of chili and meat wafted out from the pot. Su Hao picked up a large piece of fat beef and ate it after dipping it in some sauce The two level five arrow towers outside the castle were continuously releasing swords to kill the monsters in the dark, and at the same time, hundreds of thousands of golden-black Sacred Night Bugs flapped their wings and devoured the monster. The bugs proceeded to multiply infinitely as soon as the monsters were devoured! 100,000 became 200,000; and 200,000 became 300,000! They multiplied proportionate to the number of monsters! In the blink of an eye, the 100,000-strong bugs were already multiplying infinitely, and they were frantically flying out in swarms to start hunting! The bugs devoured the red monsters before the red monsters could devour the bugs! Each red monster that was devoured would be turned into a certain amount of gold coins and resources, all of which would be automatically transferred to Su Hao¡¯s warehouse! [Congratulations, you have received 10,000 gold coins!) [Congratulations, you have obtained 1,000 stacks of top-tier wood!) (Congratulations, you have obtained 2,000 piles of stones!) [Congratulations, you¡­] The reward notifications continued to ring in Su Hao¡¯s ears! The notifications were a direct indication of the amount of red monsters that were killed! At the same time, dozens of White Unicorns were galloping through the level four city-state! Countless red monsters swarmed toward them, and Qin Shuang was sweating profusely as she commanded her White Unicorn to attack those monsters! However, the number of White Unicorns were no match for the red monsters! For a moment, some of the unicorns received slight injuries! Upon seeing that, Qin Shuang ordered her arrow tower to shoot more arrows! She had only one arrow tower that had been upgraded to level four, and a huge number of red monsters were pouring in like a tide! Fortunately, the first invasion of darkness was not too difficult for a person of Qin Shuang¡¯s ability! However, it was very energy-consuming for her, and because there were too many of them, all she could do was hang on tight. She did not dare to relax or rest for even a second! Several of her level seven White Unicorns were killing the monsters one after another! (Killed a wild monster. Received 1,000 gold coins!] [Killed a wild monster. Received 1 energy stone!] While that was happening, she quickly sent a message to the World Chat Channel]! [Is everyone alright?] Chapter 29 - Branding the Castle Lords With the Slave Mark! Chapter 29 Branding the Castle Lords With the Slave Mark! In just over 30 minutes, the entire continent was plunged into a hopeless rain of blood. The invasion of darkness had left many castle lords dead or injured. Even so, most of the castle lords still managed to hold on during that first invasion, as they had successfully killed many red monsters. In addition, they obtained a large number of gold coins and a small amount of resources too. There were even some lords who had upgraded their castles to level five, which allowed them to understand the importance of elements. Many of the lords were chatting among themselves in the (World Chat Channel] too. [I didn¡¯t expect that I¡¯d be able to avoid the darkness invasion and upgrade my castle to level five!) (Brothers! You will need elements to level up after reaching level five!] (So it turns out that the most difficult part of the invasion is the beginning. When it was reaching the end, our strength began to increase slowly as we killed more of them, and it became less difficult in the later stages!¡± (Brothers, I¡¯ve just leveled up to a level five castle and even killed a level eight monster!] [Why did I get so many useless gold coins though? Why is fate being so unfair to me? Why am I not given any energy stones and mutant crystals? all i get is gold coins!] ¡­ The invasion of darkness was coming to an end. Back in the Holy Light Castle, Su Hao¡ªwho had plenty of wine and food to spare, looked at the information on the world announcement. Everyone feared the invasion of darkness before it happened, but as soon as they experienced it, they all realized that it was not as difficult as they had imagined. On the contrary, most of the castle lords had leveled up, and they had also gained some gold coins and other resources. Su Hao, however, was the only one who knew that it was only the invasion. The difficulty of each darkness invasion would be several times more difficult than the previous one. If the castle lords did not improve their abilities accordingly, they would be completely crushed when they faced the invasion again seven days later. However, Su Hao did not seem bothered that the darkness invasion was more difficult than the previous one. No matter how difficult it was, the Sacred Night Worms treated it as if it were an insignificant matter. In addition, he had already gained a lot in just half an hour of the darkness invasion. He opened his warehouse information and took stock of his gains. In total, he had obtained 9.61 million gold coins, 842 energy stones, 265 mutant crystals, and various other resources. Even though the resources he had obtained were the most among all the castle lords, it was only the tip of the iceberg for his harvest. Every lord who successfully dodged the darkness invasion would be given a chance at the lottery. Before then, there were nearly 12 castle lords who had sought refuge with him. After the castle lords turned into citizens and submitted to other castle lords, their lottery chances would then be given to the main lord. He and the 12 other castle lords had successfully resisted the invasion, which meant that all 12 castle lords all had a chance at the lottery. Su Hao, who had accumulated 12 lottery chances, had already walked from his room to the first floor warehouse. (Congratulations, you have won 12 lottery chances!) [Please turn the wheel to claim your prize!] It had been a long time since he did a lottery, so he wiped the dust on the roulette before pressing the button. The wheel spun rapidly. (Congratulations on obtaining 5,000,000 gold coins!) [Congratulations on receiving 500 energy stones!) (Congratulations on obtaining 10,000,000 stacks of wood!) (Congratulations on obtaining 8,000,000 piles of stones!) [Congratulations on obtaining 1,000,000 sets of refined iron!] [Congratulations on obtaining a city-state expansion blueprint!) (Congratulations on obtaining a slave brand!] [One lottery chance left!] Su Hao had used up the first 11 lottery chances, which resulted in 12.63 million gold coins, 20 million sets of wood, 15 million sets of stone, 1000 energy stones, and 600 mutant crystals. He also received a blueprint for the expansion of the city-state and a slave brand. Among everything that he had obtained, the city-state expansion blueprint and slave brand would be more useful to Su Hao now that he had upgraded to a level one city-state. The city-state expansion blueprint could expand the city-state to a larger size, thus expanding its territory. At that time, he would be able to take in more castle lords as his people. The more he took in, the more chances Su Hao would have for the lottery. Greater harvests would lead to greater risks, which in turn led to even greater chances of the subjects rebelling. At that point, having a slave brand would reduce the chances of a rebellion to zero. As long as they branded the lords who surrendered, their loyalty would be all but guaranteed. Even if some people harbored evil intentions or had low loyalty, those who were branded with the ¡®slave¡¯ brand would have their loyalty soar to 100! Su Hao immediately ordered all the castle lords to gather at the center of the city-state! Chapter 30 - The Price of Submission Chapter 30 The Price of Submission The moon had reached the highest point in the sky and the entire area was silent. Standing in front of the towering Skyscraper Tower were more than 50 militia in white armor. They held their swords and stood all around Su Hao. The soldiers were surrounding a fire pit that was emitting smoke. The light from the fire pit produced sparks and hot air were lingering all around. An iron slave brand was being heated in the fire. The blazing flames shone on the faces of the 12 city lords who were standing in front of the fire pit. They all seemed to be trembling in unison as they stood in front of the fire pit. After all, they were about to face the result of being branded as slaves. It was something that they had not expected, and they were extremely afraid at that moment. They were afraid of not only the pain, but also having to submit to Su Hao for a lifetime without ever having freedom. That was the price of submission. Nothing else could be done once a person submitted themselves in the Endless Mainland. It was due to Su Hao that they were able to escape the invasion of darkness, which obliged them not to disobey despite their fear of what was about to happen! Su Hao was standing near them, and his face was filled with endless indifference as he glanced at the head of his militia. Then, the militia leader nodded his head slightly and grunted! ¡°Hand me the brand!¡± The soldiers standing by the fire pit immediately took out the slave brand! As soon as the trembling city lords saw that, they were all so shocked that they instinctively took a step back. They had never thought that they would have to accept such a treatment if they surrendered. One second they were the city lord; the next second they would become Su Hao¡¯s eternal slave. Some did it out of their own free will and were willing to go through everything. They had, after all, accepted Su Hao¡¯s protection and had nothing to fear at that moment. With that in mind, the lords all took a deep breath, pushed aside the fear in their hearts, and then took a step forward! ¡°I¡¯ll go first!¡± ¡°So will I! If it wasn¡¯t for Lord Su Hao¡¯s shelter, we wouldn¡¯t have lived to this day!¡± ¡°I¡­ I¡¯ll admit that I¡¯m scared, but this is something I have to accept. Even if the searing iron burns my skin, I¡¯m more than willing to do it!¡± Then, a burning hot brand with the word ¡®slave¡¯ engraved on it instantly left an eternal mark on their exposed left chest! Sizzle¡­ It was one burning sound after another, accompanied by an echo of intense pai! The bright red word ¡®slave¡¯ could be seen on their left chests. The burnt skin and flowing blood made for an extremely gory scene! As soon as they were branded, they lost their self-awareness forever and became Su Hao¡¯s eternally loyal subjects! Some were willing to go through that, while others were not. They were extremely terrified when they saw the other lords screaming in pain after being branded. There were even some people who initially wanted to reap the benefits but did not expect to pay such a huge price. To them, losing their own will forever was an extremely horrifying result! Even if they were willing to become Su Hao¡¯s men, they were unwilling to give up on their autonomy for the rest of their lives. The moment the burning-hot slave mark was about to branded on their left chest, the subjects who were unwilling pushed away the soldiers in front of them and ran out of the entrance! They did not want to lose their free will! A couple of lords ran out of the gate. When the others saw their actions, they immediately yelled, ¡°Are you guys crazy? Don¡¯t run! You¡¯ll only die if you leave this place!¡± ¡°Just accept it!¡± ¡°Submit to Lord Su Hao forever!¡± Standing behind them was Su Hao, whose dark and cold pupils reflected the figures of the fleeing lords. He had little, if any, expression on his face. The figures in his line of sight were getting smaller and smaller as they were about to reach the gate! At this moment, the lords who had not been branded and were still hesitating whether or not to escape felt as though they had a chance to do so! In an instant, two more lords could no longer suppress their fear and also stepped out of the gate! As soon as they stepped out, Su Hao lowered his gaze. At the same time, the swords held by the militia flew right toward the lords¡¯ bodies! The next second! Several silver swords went straight through their hearts and skewered them onto the soil! ¡°AGHHH!¡± They struggled helplessly in the pools of blood that formed through the wound created by the silver sword. Eventually, they all stopped moving. Behind them were the remaining lords who had been branded and were yet to be branded. Horror appeared in their eyes after they saw that scene! They knew very well that they would end up the same if they dared to rebel or show the slightest sign of insubordination. Compared to being eaten to death by wild beasts, being under Su Hao¡¯s command forever was not necessarily a bad thing, even if they were reduced to doing things such as farming and construction. Self-consciousness was meaningless to them, as there was no point in having it if they died. In just a short while, all the lords who were still alive had accepted the slave brand willingly! It was quiet at night and the moon was still shining bright. ere At the center of the city-state were militia and civilians, all of whom knelt down on one knee and placed their right hand on their left chest as they yelled, ¡°Long live our lord!¡± Su Hao stood at the highest point and gazed down coldly at more than 60 of his civilians. He knew that his city-state would develop to even greater heights in the future! Chapter 31 - Green Dragon Chapter 31 Green Dragon After Su Hao was done branding his slaves, he proceeded to commence his last lottery. He felt that it was a bit of a pity not to get the SSS-Grade troop type that he wanted most during the previous 11 chances. The highest prize on the roulette wheel was an SSS-grade prize, so he hoped that his last chance would go in the direction that he wanted. With that thought, he immediately started the roulette! The needle began spinning rapidly and Su Hao watched everything without taking his eyes off! The spinning stopped at long last and the needle had landed on a certain area as well! [Congratulations, you¡¯ve obtained an SSS-Grade troop type!) (SSS troop type: Green Dragon! ] [Ability: breathing poison that poisons wild monsters to death] (Limitation: Dragon limited to only one. Unable to reproduce. Must be slowly nurtured from a dragon egg. The abilities of a high-level adult Green Dragon will be so limitless that it could rival the strength of a god!] [Advantage: when it reaches a certain advanced level, it can break through the shackles of SSS-Grade!) [Cultivation conditions: dark mutant crystals are required.] (Do you want to cultivate it? ] (Yes/No] ¡°Yes!¡± Su Hao¡¯s eyes lit up after seeing that. His wishes had come true, and he had drawn the reward that he both needed the most and looked forward to the most. The reason why SSS-Grade Green Dragons could break through shackles and achieve a godlike level after reaching adulthood was all thanks to their ability to devour and revive indefinitely. Despite being an SSS-Grade troop type, however, the dragon was unable to multiply indefinitely, meaning it could not grow into a group like the Sacred Night Bugs. The Sacred Night Bugs¡¯ had an advantage in that they attacked in a swarm, contrasting with the Green Dragon¡¯s lone attacks. Even if the Green Dragon¡¯s ability reached a high level and attacked the Green Dragon together, the end result would either be a lose-lose situation or the millions of Sacred Night Bugs would be devoured by the Green Dragon. The SSS-Grade Sacred Night Bugs were powerful enough that they could be compared to the gods, but a high-level dragon could even surpass the Sacred Night Bugs! The dragon had, quite simply, reached a level beyond that of the gods! In his previous life, Su Hao had never seen anything with an ability to surpass the gods. However, Su Hao surmised that only a troop type above god-level could face the Eternal Night head on In his past experience, several people with almost godlike SSS-Grade troop types were still eventually devoured by the Eternal Night. Even so, that was the only hope Su Hao had to contend against the Eternal Night. He had to at least give it a try! At that moment, a white light appeared in Su Hao¡¯s vision! [Congratulations, Castle Lord! Your Green Dragon egg is slowly hatching! ] By the time those words disappeared from his vision, a huge dragon egg had appeared in front of Su Hao. Upon seeing that, Su Hao knew that his priority at that moment was to train it into a high-rank Green Dragon. He only had one dragon, so he needed to ensure that everything was done perfectly right from the beginning! After all, he would face the risk of losing the Green Dragon if anything went wrong. High-quality dark crystals were required to nurture it throughout the entire incubation process, but those were far from easy to obtain. Outside of the Endless Continent was a paradise that bore countless rich resources, ores, and mutant crystals. One of them would be the dark crystal that Su Hao wanted. At the same time, however, great rewards come with great risks. After all, level 10 beasts were the lowest individuals there, and any beast that appeared was at least level 10. It would only mean that they would encounter higher level beasts as they went deeper. When Su Hao passed by there in his previous life, he encountered Sea Dragons around level 12 as well as various other sea monsters! Those sea monsters were naturally hidden in the deep sea and did not come out easily, but most of them were all high-level monsters! The Sacred Night Bugs¡¯s devouring ability on land was naturally better than if they were on the bottom of the sea. If he startled those high-level monsters, all he could do was try his best to ensure the bugs were fighting on land. After all, the Sacred Night Bugs would lose some of their strength compared to on land, as the Sacred Night Bugs¡¯s infinite devouring ability at the bottom of the sea would be affected by the resistance of the water. Elsewhere, the castles of the other castle lords had suffered intense damage from the invasion of darkness. Although the lords had successfully resisted the invasion, they sustained huge losses in the troops, militia, and their castles. As a result, various resources were needed to restore their castle to normal. At the same time, some castle lords who had successfully leveled up to level five began to appeal for the exchange of elements in the (Trading Channel ]. The suffering had ended for now, and everyone began to recover gradually! The liveliness in the [World Chat Channel] were also gradually increasing. Chapter 32 - Burn the Energy Stone in the Warehouse! Chapter 32 Burn the Energy Stone in the Warehouse! (Thank goodness! I¡¯m alive! The first invasion is over!) (My castle is reduced to only a few wooden stakes and it¡¯s basically a ruin now. I need a lot of resources to repair it!] (You¡¯re not the only one! My castle has been razed to the ground by the red monsters. I only got about 40,000 to 50,000 gold coins, and less than 30 energy stones. I didn¡¯t manage to get any other resources.] [Our rewards are highly disproportionate to the gains!] [I don¡¯t have many energy stones and mutant crystals left, and there¡¯s nothing for me to use to upgrade my castle!] (That¡¯s a little misleading! My castle was upgraded from level 3 to level 5 during the darkness invasion!) [Me too! But I heard that level 5 is already the highest level for a castle to level up. Any higher and it¡¯ll become a city-state! Elements are required to level up to a city-state!) [Elements? Where can I get those elements? Why haven¡¯t I seen them when my soldiers killed wild beasts?] [I¡¯m guessing only the Big Shot Su Hao knows about this! He¡¯s the only one who obtained the elements before the invasion of darkness, or else there¡¯s no possible explanation for why his castle became a city-state.) (What? He was already this strong before the invasion?] (Yeah! And I heard that you need to kill level 10 monsters with special intelligence to obtain elements!] [If my forces hadn¡¯t suffered heavy losses, level 10 would¡¯ve been a piece of cake!) (But we have almost no resources now. How are we going to collect them? We can¡¯t even maintain our own castle!] The discussion among the city lords continued, but those irrelevant praises did not matter to Su Hao. He was only interested in practical things. Whether it was to trade things that were no longer useful to him such as gold coins, energy stones, or mutant crystals, it did not really matter what it was that he wanted to trade. More important than anything else was the unit price. After all, many of the castle lords were severely injured, and some of them had even leveled up to level 5. resources At that juncture, their need for resources and various elements would be even greater than ever before. Their current forces and manpower had suffered heavy losses, and their survival was still up in the air. Su Hao therefore knew that everything would be sold out regardless of how high he raised the price. When he made his decision, he put the remaining 20 or so elements, as well as his inexhaustible number of energy stones, mutant crystals, and wood on the (Trading Channel]. [One element for 100,000 gold coins!) [One mutant crystal for 50,000 gold coins!) [One energy stone for 30,000 gold coins! ] [One stack of wood and stone for 20,000 gold coins!] [A total of 21 elements, 1,700 energy stones, 700 mutant crystals, and 5 million stacks of wood and stone available!] [Holy Light Castle: Su Hao.] As soon as that message appeared on the [Trading Channel], all the other lords were dumbfounded and beyond shocked to read it! [I¡¯m not seeing things, am I? Did you guys see the number of resources announced by Big Shot Su Hao?] [I had to wipe my glasses before taking another look. If my eyes serve me right, then this number is totally bragging.) [Damn, I don¡¯t even have 10 stacks of wood remaining, and Big Shot Su Hao is now selling 5 million stacks of wood?!) (Exactly! He¡¯s even offering 1,700 precious energy stones? This is frightening! He must¡¯ve killed tens of thousands of wild beasts to reach that level! I¡¯m not even worth one of Su Hao¡¯s toes!] (Oh God! These elements really do exist! I thought everyone was just making things up! That means we really need them once we reach level 5 and above!] (Elements are incredibly difficult to obtain. A level 10 intelligent beast must be killed first. And here we see Su Hao offering 21! Insane!] [Stop praising him, everyone! Don¡¯t you see how much gold coins he¡¯s asking for? It¡¯s practically cutthroat!) (Sob! I finally see what you mean, but no matter how expensive it is, I have no choice but to buy it! My troops have suffered heavy injuries and they can¡¯t go out to collect resources for the time being! Repairing my castle and my troops are most important at this stage.] [1 +1] At the same time, Su Hao was having dinner in his castle when the information of all his transactions began appearing before him! [Received 100,000 gold coins in exchange for an element!) (Received 300,000 gold coins in exchange for 10 energy stones! ] (Received 500,000 gold coins in exchange for 10 mutant crystals!] A continuous stream of notifications were popping up. At that moment, the leader of the soldiers came forward all of a sudden to report a situation. ¡°My Lord, the coal for the arrow towers have all been used up. What should we do?¡± Arrow towers needed coal to generate energy for firing, but the coal had been used up long ago because they did not make a point to collect it. The arrow tower¡¯s energy consumption was too high during the invasion of darkness, causing most of the coal to have been used up long ago. Therefore, the arrow tower no longer had the energy to shoot arrows. After hearing the concern of his miltia¡¯s leader, Su Hao said indifferently, ¡°Use the energy stones in the warehouse.¡± As soon as he said that, the head of his militia was stunned for a moment and had a look of disbelief. He could not help but ask again, ¡°My Lord, are you sure we¡¯re going to burn the energy stones?¡± ¡°What else is there to use?¡± Su Hao responded as-a-matter-of-factly. The startled militia leader nodded hurriedly, ¡°Yes, My Lord!¡± Chapter 33 - Han Yan Upgrades to City-State; Underground Passage Appears! Chapter 33 Han Yan Upgrades to City-State; Underground Passage Appears! Elsewhere, above a peak on the Endless Continent, Han Yan led dozens of level 10 black dragons and stood in front of the corpse of an intelligent level 10 monster. He had obtained a water element, which he used to upgrade his castle to a level one city-state. At the same time, his level-up information was updated on the (World Update Announcement)! [Congratulations, Black Dragon Castle has upgraded to a level one city-state! ] (Castle Lord: Han Yan! ] [City-State Element: Water] (Underground passage will open soon!] [After the underground passage between the city-states is opened, three options will be given: attack, peace, and surrender!) [Please make your decision, Castle Lords. You may also forfeit the chance to choose.) Moments later, a continuous underground tunnel that connected the two city-states had appeared on the Endless Continent. The new update caused a huge commotion. All the busybody castle lords posted their opinions on the [World Chat Channel]! (Whoa! Han Yan upgraded to a city-state too! I guess it¡¯s not too difficult to achieve a city-state!) (That¡¯s right. Things were so difficult before the invasion of darkness, but now I feel as if everything is pretty doable. Now that Han Yan has upgraded, any of us might be the next one to upgrade!) (Goodness! What do you think you¡¯re doing? You¡¯re all missing the point! Didn¡¯t you realize that the underground tunnel will open as soon as we upgrade to a city-state?] (Damn, I just realized that this could be a battle! Is Han Yan¡¯s opponent Su Hao?] [No way! Now I¡¯m scared to upgrade my castle to a city-state!] [It doesn¡¯t have to be a battle. Three options have been provided, right?] [The other city-state is probably Big Shot Su Hao!] [I¡¯m guessing Han Yan wouldn¡¯t dare to attack Su Hao and they¡¯ll probably choose to co-exist peacefully.] (That¡¯s not necessarily the case. Perhaps Han Yan decided to choose the path less taken? He might just challenge him!] (What¡¯s the latter with you guys? Han Yan might be second place, but he won¡¯t necessarily lose if they enter into a fight!) As the lords started discussing among themselves, three buttons appeared in Han Yan¡¯s field of vision. [Congratulations, your upgrade was successful!) (As you are the second castle lord on the continent to upgrade to a city-state, the system will automatically connect your city-state to the first lord¡¯s city-state.] (The following three buttons are your choices. ] [The red button represents conquest, the blue button represents surrender, and the green button in the middle represents peace.] (You can choose any one of the buttons, or you can also automatically reserve the opportunity to choose at a later time.] [Once you press the button, you have to complete the action.] A cold glint flashed in Han Yan¡¯s eyes when he saw that. He understood that his Black Dragon Castle was connected to Su Hao¡¯s Holy Light Castle. By virtue of his current strength, he was not confident that he could conquer it. However, he did not have any thoughts of surrendering, and peace was an even more absurd idea in his opinion. After all, he knew that his ambition did not stop there. Having more subjects in his city-state would be conducive to his reputation and ability, which made it quite natural that his thoughts were inclined to attack. Although his ambitions were nothing noble, there was one thing he could not accept-he did not want to be second! He looked at the messages on the chat channel and his brows furrowed even more. Su Hao would steal his limelight all the time, and almost no one would remember his name! His dozen or so Black Dragons had leveled up several times under his command during the invasion of darkness. He also obtained many resources as a result! With more than 800 energy stones, 300 mutant crystals, and two million gold coins, his resources were¡ªin his opinion-more than enough to give him the right to lead all the other lords! ¡®Do you think I¡¯m still second, Su Hao?!¡¯ As he thought of this, his hand touched the red button as his eyes flashed with rage and jealousy. At that exact moment, he saw Su Hao¡¯s offer in the trading channel. 1,700 energy stones, 700 mutant crystals, five million stacks of wood and stone¡­ Han Yan¡¯s pupils trembled when he read that, and he instantly halted himself from touching the red button! He could not believe what he saw! The amount of resources Su Hao offered to sell was three times more than what he had! Furthermore, the resources that were being sold were already twice as many as the resources that he had obtained after resisting the invasion of darkness. That was including the resources he stored in his city-state¡¯s warehouse for his own use ¡­ Then, he retracted his hand. He could not let his anger place him in a passive and weak position. If he acted rashly on the opportunity to attack, he would only be jumping into the fire! He needed to bolster his strength before he could prove himself, and only when he was able to defeat Su Hao would he consider whether to attack or not. That was the one and only right move at that moment. Back in the Holy Light Castle, three buttons also appeared in Su Hao¡¯s vision. Su Hao, who had just finished his meal, took a piece of tissue and wiped his mouth. He did not even bother to think and pressed the red button right away. [Are you sure you want to attack the Black Dragon Castle? ] ¡°No.¡± Su Hao did not want to take advantage of that situation to become the bad guy. His wish was not to expand the city-state, and he always had a clear mind when it came to his ultimate goal¡ªhe wanted to be strong enough to fight against the Eternal Night. He felt a sense of satisfaction in his heart to see that there were other castle lords who were almost on par with him and might even surpass him if they worked harder. If everyone could become stronger and stronger, the possibility of fighting against Eternal Night together would become greater and greater. As a result, he did not plan to attack any city-states for the time being. Over on the other end, Han Yan was ready to set off for the deeper and more dangerous darkness. He had to improve himself further in order to have a chance against Su Hao. At the same time, he also believed that Su Hao would have some reorganizing to do after the invasion of darkness had just passed. Han Yan was not that low a person to attack Su Hao¡¯s city-state at that critical moment. Having strengthened his resolve, he brought his dozen level ten Black Dragons toward his city-state entrance Chapter 34 - Su Hao Won First Place in the Combat Strength Ranking! Chapter 34 Su Hao Won First Place in the Combat Strength Ranking! Back at the Holy Light Castle, Su Hao stood up and ordered his militia to prepare some equipment. Those equipment would be used to collect mutant crystals. At that moment, the world announcement was suddenly updated! [Attention, all lords! ] [Congratulations on successfully resisting the first invasion of darkness!) [The overall ranking of the lords in the invasion of darkness will soon be announced!) (The lord who wins first place will win the mystery prize! ] [Mystery Prize: Radiant Holy Sword!) (Radiant Holy Sword: it is not technically a sword, but a structure that can chase away the wild beasts within a five-mile radius of one¡¯s castle!) As soon as the news was released, all the lords were excited and the comments section went into a frenzy. (Whoa! The Radiant Holy Sword is so powerful!¡± (I want one too. Why is it that only the first place gets a reward! I can¡¯t accept that!] [Do you think we¡¯ll stand a chance with Big Shot Su Hao around? Don¡¯t even think about it!) [It could be Big Shot Han Yan though!] (Whoever it is, I want to see them in a battle!] (Count me in. I¡¯ll bet on whoever wins first place today!] [+1!] The comments section was wild. Everyone was looking forward to who would get first place! Some were even excited for a gambling match where the gold coins they won that time around would be used as currency. Some even daydreamed in the hopes that they would get first place. Some did not even have time to pay attention to the announcements. They were still recovering from their injuries and cleaning up the mess caused by the invasion. Elsewhere on a plain in the Endless Continent, dozens of militiamen were building a level three bow tower and a level four castle inside White Unicorn Castle. Qin Shuang bandaged her wound using tape inside her room. Under the dim yellow light, fresh blood dripped from her fair skin and fell drop by drop onto the rough wooden floor. ¡°Tch!¡± Qin Shuang frowned, endured the pain, and eventually finished bandaging. She had indeed survived the invasion, but she also knew that her strength was still rather weak compared to others in the entire continent. When she first got injured, she paid attention to Su Hao¡¯s transaction information and even Han Yan¡¯s city upgrade information. One outstanding lord after another had appeared, and they have already surpassed her by many levels. It was no surprise then that Su Hao did not even bother paying attention to her. With that though, she opened her (Friend Messages] and subconsciously scrolled down. There, she discovered that the contents of her chat with Su Hao ended with her relaying the information to him while in the darkness. Qin Shuang¡¯s face had a look of anger when she thought of that. It was clear that Su Hao did not take her seriously, no doubt due to her inferior strength. She thus had no choice but to catch up with him as soon as possible. At that moment, an announcement flashed across her vision. [The overall ranking of the lords in the invasion of darkness will soon be announced!) (The lord who wins first place will win the mystery prize! ] [Mystery Prize: Radiant Holy Sword!] When she saw that, a hint of anticipation flashed in her eyes. First place should probably go to Su Hao. The chat area was beginning to look like a manic frenzy too! (Hurry up and announce it! I can¡¯t wait!) (Why are you so excited even though you know you won¡¯t be the winner?] [I want to bet on Su Hao getting first place!) [No, I¡¯m going to bet on Han Yan winning!] At long last, the result that everyone was eagerly waiting for had been announced. (Congratulations! First place goes to the Holy Light Castle¡¯s lord, Su Hao! He has won first place in the combat strength ranking!] [The holy Radiant Holy Sword will automatically appear in the Holy Light Castle! ] The moment the message was released, all the city lords began expressing their intense shock in the comments section. (Su Hao is really strong!) [Why must there be such a huge disparity between two people?] (Han Yan is in second place again? I wouldn¡¯t have made the bet if I¡¯d known earlier. I lost 10,000 gold coins!) [Hahahaha, who told you to be such an idiot? Anyone who knows what¡¯s going on will know that Su Hao will definitely win!) [Su Hao is awesome! I¡¯m curious to know how Han Yan is feeling right now. Is he itching to press the red button and attack?] Qin Shuang was not surprised to see this. There was no doubt in her mind that first place would go to Su Hao. The gap between them was too huge, and she felt that she was not even in the top ten. However, she had won a lottery chance during the darkness invasion. Before she bandaged her wound, she drew her lottery and received a new S-Grade troop type -spirits! However, raising spirits required some rare mutant crystals, such as evolution mutant crystals and light mutant crystals, which could only be found deep in the mine. Therefore, she immediately picked up all kinds of protective equipment and rushed to the mine with her troops. She felt that she had to speed up her pace when it came to upgrading, because the only way to attract Su Hao¡¯s attention was to become stronger. Chapter 35 - Chance Encounter in the Forest! Chapter 35 Chance Encounter in the Forest! A tall and bright building stood tall in the center of the city-state. Su Hao had already put on his armor and equipped himself with some relatively easy-to-bring equipment. He was prepared to rush to the mine. His heart was much more at ease when he saw the Radiant Holy Sword, as his castle would not come under attack by any monsters within a five kilometer radius even though he was not in the city-state. His civilians would also be safe. With that in mind, more than 300,000 Sacred Night Bugs had already woken up from the top of the Skyscraper Tower. They began flapping their wings and flew madly into the darkness! Su Hao led the bugs toward the mine. The air inside the depths of the forest was very cold. A cold lake was situated in the middle of several black mines. The so-called mutant crystals were situated on the other side of the bottomless lake. Thousands of wild monsters called the bottom of their lake home. They were all lying dormant there as they guarded the mutant crystals behind them. At that moment, Qin Shuang¡ªwho wore a tight-fitting red dress, high-heel leather boots, and had her long hair tied into a ponytail ¡ª-was riding on the back of a level 10 White Unicorn as it galloped through the forest! She held the map in her hand and ran in the direction of the mine. Having lost her way many times in her journey, she would have had to search for even longer had it not been for the map that she obtained through the (Trading Channel]. Before she entered the forest, however, she encountered many rare and exotic beasts below level ten, which were all swiftly dealt with by her White Unicorns. What surprised her most was the complete absence of any wild beast when she set foot in the forest. It was a sight that made her feel increasingly uneasy., and goosebumps began to appear on her fair skin. The deeper she went into the forest, the more bone-chilling the cold temperature was! At that moment, a shrill cry came from the depths of the forest, followed by a gust of cold wind! Chaos soon ensued in the forest! The leaves of the forest trees rustled in the strong wind, and the sky somehow became darker too. Upon seeing that, Qin Shuang¡¯s pupils contracted sharply and even her hand that was holding the White Unicorn¡¯s whip was beginning to tremble. Cold sweat was dripping from her forehead, yet she still pretended to act calm and look up at the darkening sky! At that moment, a group of unknown creatures suddenly appeared up above! The next second, she roared, ¡°Set up the formation!¡± Dozens of level 10 White Unicorns kept pace with her and protected her as she went deeper into the forest. Her field of vision picked up on a shimmering light in the distance where the horizon was. At that moment, the moonlight descended upon the earth, illuminating the horizon and filling the place with light. Qin Shuang knew that the source of the light was the lake. Legend had it that anyone who crossed the lake could collect all kinds of mutant crystals. She narrowed her eyes and held her breath, for her heartbeat accelerated the further she walked in. However, she still had to cross the lake regardless of how scared she was! She could become stronger as long as she obtained the mutant crystals from that place, giving her a shot at being noticed by Su Hao. That was her line of thought. ¡°Go!¡± she ordered, and her White Unicorns galloped deeper into the forest! All of a sudden, a deep and cold male voice came from the depths of the forest. ¡°Who¡¯s there?¡± Seconds later, more than 300,000 Sacred Night Bugs rushed toward Qin Shuang from the depths of the forest! All that Qin Shuang could see before her were swarms of black and golden insects flying toward her! More importantly, the places that the insects went to were barren! Qin Shuang was startled by that scene and immediately pulled the reins! The huge swarm of Sacred Night Bugs were like a black hole with no end in sight! Both the degree of destruction and the speed of their flight was far beyond anything Qin Shuang had ever imagined! At that critical juncture, Qin Shuang felt as if she was going to die! ¡®What do I do! I don¡¯t want to die!¡¯ ¡°Hellp! I don¡¯t want to die!¡± She was not in the frame of mind to order her White Unicorns to do what was right. The only thing she could think of was to shout! ¡°Help me! I don¡¯t want to die here!¡± She closed her eyes tightly as soon as she ended her sentence, as if she had chosen to just wait for her demise during the last moments of her life. After four to five seconds, she slowly began to frown. ¡®Wait? Why does it feel as though I¡¯m still alive? Didn¡¯t the black hole-like vortex swallow me alive?¡¯ She was stunned to realize that she was not attacked or devoured. As she opened her eyes slowly, she saw that the swarm of over 300,000 Sacred Night Bugs seemed to have stopped in their tracks. They no longer flew toward Qin Shuang or devoured her. Beside the swarm stood a blurry figure, and she rubbed her eyes in disbelief. It was a man wearing silver armor and a simple sword. It was Su Hao, who stood at the edge of the lake with his hands behind his back. His eyes narrowed and he shook his head indifferently. ¡°And who are you?¡± Qin Shuang realized that he was asking her a question, so she immediately cupped her hands and lowered her head. ¡°I¡¯m Qin Shuang, Lord of the White Unicorn Castle.¡± As soon as she said her name, Su Hao frowned -as if needing time to ponder-before saying, ¡°Doesn¡¯t ring a bell.¡± Qin Shuang¡¯s expression was filled with rage when she heard that. ¡°My name is known to all men on the Endless Continent.¡± Su Hao no longer had the mood to hear her answer and immediately turned around to leave. Upon seeing that, Qin Shuang frowned and asked angrily, ¡°Hey! Who are you? What¡¯s with your attitude!¡± ¡°I¡¯m Su Hao!¡± came the nonchalant reply. He turned around and waved at her before continuing to walk forward. Qin Shuang was stunned. ¡®Su¡­ Hao? THE Su Hao? How could it be? What a coincidence!¡¯ Before she could respond properly to that revelation, she immediately ran to Su Hao¡¯s side and said, ¡°Hey! Don¡¯t you know me? We¡¯re good friends!¡± Su Hao, however, continued to walk forward as if he had no intention of responding. Qin Shuang was incensed to see his reaction, but she suppressed it rapidly and said slowly, ¡°It¡¯s fine. Since fate has brought us together, why don¡¯t we continue the journey with each other? I happen to have the map for this mine!¡± She shamelessly kept up with Su Hao¡¯s pace as she said that! Su Hao neither refused or accepted it and merely continued to walk forward. Soon, a dozen White Unicorns and 300,000-strong Sacred Night Bugs followed the two of them into the depths of the forest! Chapter 36 - The Glowing Mutant Crystal Startles the Sea Dragon! Chapter 36 The Glowing Mutant Crystal Startles the Sea Dragon! Moonlight covered the entire land as night fell. Everything outside the forest was chirping, unlike the silence within the forest. One could not even hear the sound from a wild beast. It was dark all around and the mutant crystals were still nowhere to be found. Su Hao and Qin Shuang, however, had arrived at a nearby dark cave. Qin Shuang stood in front of it with hesitation, for it was too dark inside and it was difficult to see anything clearly. At that moment, she remembered that she still had the Holy Light Torch, which enabled her to see everything within a one-meter radius as long as it was lit. Water could be heard dripping inside the cave, along with a near-imperceptible sound of breathing Qin Shuang lowered her voice and asked tentatively, ¡°Should we go in and take a look?¡± Su Hao replied, ¡°Yes.¡± Qin Shuang then said proudly. ¡°Sure thing. I¡¯m telling you, you¡¯re lucky that I came along with you!¡± Qin Shuang said proudly and immediately lowered her head to pick up the Holy Light Torch that she brought with her. The Holy Light Torch could illuminate everything within a one-meter radius when lit. She rubbed it with an ignition stone and immediately lit a small flame, which flickered and began to burn. Then, she placed the torch on top of the flame. Just like that, the Holy Light Torch ignited and a head of flames appeared in her field of vision. Everything that was dark before was now illuminated by Qin Shuang¡¯s Holy Light Torch, which lit up the cave and enabled everything within it to be seen in clear view. At that moment, she looked up in a rather smug expression because she was expecting to see Su Hao following behind her. As soon as she looked up, however, she realized that Su Hao¡¯s figure had long disappeared! She immediately raised the Holy Light Torch and looked ahead. Su Hao had already walked about 10 meters further! Upon seeing that, she could not help but complain to herself about his utter disregard of life! He really was putting his life at risk, and he showed a complete lack of manners when he just left without having any intention of waiting for him! With that thought, she shouted anxiously, ¡°Hey, Su Hao! Wait for me! Look, I have a Holy Light Torch that can light up the darkness!¡± The two of them walked one after another in the cave ! Qin Shuang shone the torch around, but not a single crystal was found after half an hour¡¯s search. Just when she thought that there would not be a single crystal in the cave, the light from her torch shone on a crystal that was stuck inside a crack in the rock wall! In her excitement, she called out in a low voice, ¡°Hey, Su Hao! I found the mutant crystal!¡± She then stretched out his hand. Su Hao was walking in front, and when he heard that, he became alert at once and turned around to grab her wrist. ¡°Stop! Don¡¯t take it!¡± Alas, it was too late! She had already picked up the crystal when he reached for her wrist. When she saw how he reacted, she blinked her eyes and said with a cheeky smile, ¡°What¡¯s the matter? Are you going to fight over the crystal with me? Who told you to walk in without waiting for me? You deserve it.¡± The mutant crystal in her hand lit up all of a sudden as soon as she spoke.! Colorful lights immediately flowed out of the mutant crystal, and soon, the entire cave was filled with beautiful lights. However, things were not as simple as it seemed, for Su Hao had also made the same mistake because in his previous life. Mutant crystals should never be picked up with one¡¯s bare hands! Instead, there was a special method that should be used to pick them so they would not awaken the beasts that were guarding the mutant crystals. Unfortunately, it was all too late! Colorful lights began shining everywhere! A Sea Dragon emerged from the depths of the sea! It was ten or so meters long and one meter wide! Seconds later, the huge Sea Dragon opened its fangs and roared while breathing out cold air! The multi-colored mutant crystal was instantly sucked into the dragon¡¯s stomach through it¡¯s strong power! At the same time, the cold aura instantly made both Qin Shuang and Su Hao unconsciously take a few steps back! Upon seeing the situation, Su Hao¡¯s eyes narrowed and said coldly. ¡°We¡¯re in big trouble!¡± The beast in front of him was a level 12 Sea Dragon. He never thought that he would encounter the same Sea Dragon he previously encountered in the latter half of the forest. It seemed that the events of that day were doomed to be full of danger from the start. At the same time, Qin Shuang¡¯s eyes lit up when she saw the Sea Dragon. She felt that she had to prove her strength to Su Hao. The Sea Dragon was a level 12 creature, which was only two levels higher than her White Unicorn She felt confident about dealing with it! With that thought in mind, she mounted herself on the back of the White Unicorn. All her White Unicorns then leapt toward the Sea Dragon at the same time! A level 12 Sea Dragon could devour countless species that were lower in level than it, including humans of all levels. Qin Shuang did not know anything about that! As she was about five meters away from the Sea Dragon, she jumped off her unicorn, drew a small knife from her waist and prepared to attack the Sea Dragon! The next second, the dragon¡¯s tail appeared from the bottom of the sea and swung at her without waiting for her to get close! ¡°AGH!¡± The Sea Dragon¡¯s tail whacked her spine. Smack! Crash! In less than a second, Qin Shuang was swept away by the Sea Dragon¡¯s tail and directly smashed into the rock wall! Su Hao¡¯s eyes narrowed when he saw the whole process. He did not want to alarm the monster at that time, for he already knew the way to harvest mutant crystals. Unfortunately, he had no choice but to fight because the monster had been alerted. With that thought, he immediately shouted, ¡°Sacred Night Bugs!¡± As soon as the voice fell, more than 300,000 Sacred Night Bugs flew toward the Sea Dragon in a dense swarm! The incensed Sea Dragon had no intention of retreating at all, and the moment the bugs charged at it, it also raised its giant tail and bared its fangs. It attempted to swallow the swarm, and within seconds, the Sea Dragon had already bared its fangs to swallow the hundreds of thousands of bugs into its stomach. The act was as natural as taking a gentle breath! Only a third of the 300,000 or so Sacred Night Bugs remained! When Qin Shuang saw that scene as she got up from the ground, her eyes were filled with nothing but fear. ¡®But that¡¯s Su Hao¡¯s troop type! Why would it happen that way?¡¯ As soon as that thought popped in her mind, the wriggling Sea Dragon was visibly being eaten from the inside out! The Sacred Night Bugs worms were devouring the Sea Dragon¡¯s body from within! In just a few seconds, that huge and terrifying Sea Dragon was reduced to nothing in front of Qin Shuang¡¯s eyes! Chapter 37 - Sacred Night Bugs Evolve; Super Aptitude Obtained! Chapter 37 Sacred Night Bugs Evolve; Super Aptitude Obtained! Turmoil ensued, and the Sea Dragon vanished after being turned into a pile of bones. The bodies of countless injured Sacred Night Bugs fell into the sea. At that moment, su hao knew that his plan had failed. The mutant crystal was originally reserved for the dragon egg, but he was no longer able to obtain it. That was because the crystal had already been devoured by the Sea Dragon, which in turn, was devoured by the Sacred Night Bugs. The ensued that the effects of the mutant crystal would be received by the Sacred Night Bugs. It deviated from Su Hao¡¯s original plan because the Sacred Night Bugs¡¯ level ought not to have reached a godlike level, thus precluding it from having such godly strength even though it had leveled up. At that moment, however, the remaining 200,000 or so Sacred Night Bugs actually began emitting a strange light on the surface of the sea! Su Hao could see that the sacred Sacred Night Bugs¡¯ shells, feelers, and body size had all increased! By right, the Sacred Night Bugs were injured when fighting the Sea Dragon and should still be injured then. However, the bugs were undergoing another change after devouring the mutant crystal! At that moment, the bugs¡¯ shells were extremely hard, so even if they encountered another monster of a level 12 or higher, they would not be devoured or killed! Upon seeing that scene, Su Hao¡¯s pupils trembled and he came to a realization! ¡®Why didn¡¯t I think of this before?¡¯ he chastised! The Sacred Night Bugs had originally reached SSS-Grade¡ªthe highest grade there was. Although they were unqualified to surpass the gods, their strength was already in a class of its own. With the Sacred Night Bugs swallowing the mutant crystal, their abilities did not increase, but rather, their aptitude had reached the upper limit! It also meant that the Sacred Night Bugs had already evolved, meaning they had already obtained the aptitude to surpass the gods! Although they did not have any power to surpass the gods per se, they had received the aptitude to do so. As long as he continued to breed them and allow them to level up, they would one day be strong enough to surpass the gods! After all, the Sacred Night Bugs¡¯ ability to devour and multiply meant that there was no upper limit to their aptitude. If that was the case, then his swarm Sacred Night Bugs-of which their aptitude had just received an upgrade-would one day surpass the gods! It might even be possible that they would surpass the Evil God, but it was only a matter of time before they did so! As Su Hao was pondering over everything, the Sacred Night Bugs in his field of vision had actually derived another extraordinary ability! He saw that the Sacred Night Bugs could split from two to four, and the four then merged a stronger, larger bug with a harder shell! One bug split into two, and the two bugs then became one! Splitting and merging did not seem to bring about too much of a change, but on the flipside, if multiple bugs with the same ability were merged into one, then the last bug would have all the combined of the bugs that had merged to form it. were For example, if ten Sacred Night Bugs of similar energy gathered into one, then the end result would be a Sacred Night Bug that had the power of ten bugs combined! It was simply terrifying! Since there was no upper limit to the multiplying and merging of the Sacred Night Bugs, then there would come a day when they split into more than a million, and those million could then merge into one under Su Hao¡¯s command. The final end result would be a bug with an extremely hard exoskeleton as well as unparalleled devouring ability-it would have the power of more than a million Sacred Night Bugs. That single Sacred Night Bug might even have a power that was comparable to that of the Evil God! Furthermore, that giant Sacred Night Bug could then multiply into many more through the infinite division ability! 10,000 Sacred Night Bugs could then divide into another 10,000, with the process repeating over and over again. There was no longer a limit! If the cycle continued, they would one day surpass the Evil God! Once the Evil God was surpassed, nothing could ever stop the sacred Sacred Night Bugs from multiplying indefinitely! By then, the Sacred Night Bugs might even be able to contend with the Eternal Night! A trace of hope flashed in Su Hao¡¯s eyes when he had that thought! He believed that such a day would definitely come. At the same time, whatever resentment or anger that Qin Shuang had toward Su Hao disappeared at that exact moment, for she had finally come to realize how much of a gap there was between her and Su Hao. Before that happened, she had always thought that working harder and having more upgrades would allow her to be able to surpass him, or at least be on par with him. However, his strength had given her a realization. The sheer ability and development of her Sacred Night Bugs were completely beyond her knowledge and common sense. At that moment, she finally accepted that she should give up all hope of being on the same level as Su Hao. Surpassing Su Hao was something she could never hope to accomplish in her lifetime. At that moment, she suddenly recalled all the conversations she had with Su Hao before. She even held the Holy Light Torch and went deep into the darkness just so she could tell him about the darkness! She felt embarrassed, so much so that she wanted to find a crack in the ground and burrow into it! Her ability was not even a fraction of Su Hao¡¯s toe. At that moment, she no longer felt that there was any need for her to compete with him and have him discover her childish thoughts. All she wanted was to follow Su Hao¡¯s line of thinking With that in mind, she looked at Su Hao and spoke in a gentle tone, ¡°Let¡¯s work together, Big Shot Su. I will never find mutant crystals on my own in the future, and I¡¯ll definitely listen to you.¡± Su Hao snapped back to his thoughts when he heard her statement. He frowned slightly and glanced at her. As soon as Qin Shuang¡¯s made eye contact with Su Hao, she immediately smiled and stretched out her four fingers in a pledging gesture. ¡°¡®I swear I won¡¯t cause you any more trouble! I have a Holy Light Torch that I can use to light your way. Please let me follow you. I beg of you.¡± As his voice fell, Su Hao shook his head slightly and sighed. ¡®Help? I think she just wants me to protect her¡­¡¯ Then, Su Hao turned around and walked forward. He knew that his plan had failed, but there would still be more dark mutant crystals waiting for him in such a large mine. After all, although the Sacred Night Bugs had obtained the aptitude for super evolution, the nurturing of his Green Dragon could not be neglected. Su Hao needed to obtain a large number of dark mutant crystals in order to incubate the dragon egg. Chapter 38 - Come At Me, Stone Golem! Chapter 38 Come At Me, Stone Golem! Su Hao continued to walk further into the depths of the cave, and Qin Shuang held her Holy Light Torch while following closely beside him. Her greatest fear was getting lost if she did not pay any attention. At that point, Su Hao had just disappeared through a turn in the cave¡¯s passageway. Qin Shuang was a little surprised to see that and immediately shouted, ¡°Wait for me!¡± The next second. ¡°Agh!¡± She felt something hook her ankle in the dark and she tripped out of fear. The moment her body came into contact with the hard floor, red blood began flowing from the cuts on her knees and ankles ! The red blood was a ghastly sight in the dying light of the Holy Light Torch, which subsequently fell to the ground and was extinguished in an instant. as The entire underground cave once again fell into endless darkness! Su Hao¡¯s figure also disappeared all of a sudden, and not even his footsteps could be heard. Upon seeing that, she hurriedly searched for flints from her clothes in an attempt to light up the Holy Light Torch again. However, she could not find it regardless of how hard she tried. She felt that it was because she had lost it while fighting the Sea Dragon. With darkness surrounding her at that moment, the fear of the unknown arose spontaneously and it had never been as strong as it was before. Then, a warm hand picked her up, and a low and slightly cold voice sounded in her ear. ¡°Are you sure you¡¯re here to help me?¡± Qin Shuang¡¯s eyes lit up. It was Su Hao. ¡®He came back to look for me! Turns out that he¡¯s not as cold and heartless as I thought¡­¡¯ A strange emotion arose in her heart immediately after and she unconsciously lowered her eyes to say, ¡°I¡¯m sorry.¡± Su Hao had earlier recalled what happened in his previous life at the turn in front. He remembered encountering two forks in the road after walking another ten meters¡ªthe one on the left led to the underground ocean. There were all kinds of high-level beasts in the underground ocean but no mutant crystal. Su Hao almost lost his life there. He was lucky enough to escape, so he immediately took a turn and went to the right tunnel, where he found that the right side was the mine with the mutant crystals. In his previous life, however, he still failed to defeat the level 20 Stone Golems that had been sleeping in the mine for thousands of years. In the end, all he could do was escape in defeat. WIth his rebirth, he believed that even 20 wild beasts that were above level 20 would only be able to survive for 30 seconds in front of the Sacred Night Bugs that were already god-level. He wanted to verify if it was the passage to this mine, but he did not expect to encounter another situation after turning right¡­ He had no choice but to turn back. At this moment, he supported Qin Shuang as they walked forward. Although the Holy Light Torch was no longer usable, Su Hao still remembered the way. He knew that no other monsters would appear as long as he kept quiet, walked slowly, and did not pick the crystals with his bare hands. That way, they could quickly kill the level 20 Stone Golems, obtain the mutant crystals, and escape the mine. As he thought of that, he lowered his eyes and held Qin Shuang¡¯s arm while telling her indifferently, ¡°From now on, don¡¯t do anything unless I say something. Understood?¡± At the end of his cold voice, Qin Shuang grabbed Su Hao¡¯s wrist and felt a little wronged as she pouted and said, ¡°I know.¡± Indeed, she would have been dead if not for Su Hao¡­ She had no place to voice her opinion, and she could not drag Su Hao down any longer. As Su Hao advised, the two of them did not collect any of the countless mutant crystals embedded in the rock wall. After all, the crystals in the mine would no longer attract any monsters if they were collected after the Stone Golems were killed. The mutant crystals outside the mine were a cover used by the beings that guarded the real mutant crystals to protect it from miners. If they could not resist the temptation, they would attract beasts of a higher grade, which might eventually cause the final Stone Golem Boss to awaken-a highly unrewarding venture indeed. Qin Shuang was stunned as she journeyed further in with Su Hao. She did not expect that everything would be exactly as Su Hao said it would be. They did not encounter any more monsters that would affect their progress regardless of which way they turned. Little did she imagine that Su Hao could actually analyze it so well on his first time there. It was almost as if he had already done it once before. She was so shocked by his ability that her admiration for Su Hao grew stronger and stronger as she followed Su Hao closely. Finally, a flash of light appeared in their field of vision. They knew that they had reached the mine at long last! Black hills were everywhere, and countless colorful mutant crystals were embedded in the mountain wall! However, the ink-black mine in front of him was as silent as an extinct volcano. Upon seeing that, Su Hao¡¯s eyes narrowed and he smirked ever so slightly Knowing that it was the Stone Golems¡¯ trick, he called out in a low voice, ¡°Sacred Night Bugs!¡± More than 300,000 Sacred Night Bugs curled up into a huge black mass and swarmed toward the hills like a tide! Qin Shuang¡¯s pupils trembled when she saw that and she could not help but yell, ¡°Su Hao, what are you doing?¡± The moment he finished speaking, the black hill, which had been silent and pitch-black just a moment ago, actually began to move! Even more terrifying was that two pairs of human-like pupils had appeared on the black hill! At the same time, the black hill mumbled, ¡°Who is it? How dare you break into the mutant crystal mine!¡± Seconds later, four huge legs grew out of the entire hill and rushed toward the two of them! Qin Shuang¡¯s heart was overwhelmed with fear when she saw that and her entire body was trembling uncontrollably! ¡®What the hell was that thing!¡¯ She hid behind Su Hao and screamed out of instinct, ¡°AGHHHHHHHHHHH!¡± Su Hao, on the other hand, stood in front of her with a cold expression. It was as if he could remain calm even as the world was about to be destroyed. He merely stood there quietly in a steadfast manner without taking one step back. The black ore mountain began moving even faster! All of a sudden, the entire mutant crystal mine began to shake and a strong wind blew as if the ground was going to collapse anytime! The next second, Su Hao extended his right foot behind him. With his body to the side, he stretched out his hand to block Qin Shuang behind him, and the robe under his armor swayed elegantly by the wind. Su Hao then grinned, and he looked up as a trace of coldness flashed in his eyes. He then spoke in an indifferent tone, ¡°Come at me, Stone Golem.¡± Chapter 39 - I Have a Request, Lord Su Chapter 39 I Have a Request, Lord Su In the blink of an eye, the 200,000 or so Sacred Night Bugs and the huge Stone Golem came head to head in a crash! The size of the Stone Golem was equivalent to tens of millions of Sacred Night Bugs gathered together. Size, however, was not the sole factor for which strength was measured. The moment the two sides collided, the entire space exploded with a huge bright light! The next second, the Sacred Night Bugs seemed to have caused the Stone Golem to corrode. The huge Stone Golem was pierced in half from the center, and a loud painful cry came from the Stone Golem. ¡°Aghhhh! How! What kind of troop could be so strong?¡± The Stone Golem¡¯s cries became more and more mournful and hoarse! d In less than a second, nearly one-third of the giant Stone Golem¡¯s body was reduced to a gust of black dust. It was about to dissipate into the air at any second. At the same time, the dark Sacred Night Bugs continued to devour the mutant crystals on the Stone Golems! Su Hao narrowed his eyes when he saw that, because he knew that he could not have his cake and eat it. If he did not order his Sacred Night Bugs to eat it, then there would be no other way to take down the level 20 Stone Golems. Under such circumstances, he might not even be able to collect a single dark mutant crystal. Taking the middle course was his best option, and that was to let the Sacred Night Bugs devour the Stone Golems, but then the Sacred Night Bugs would devour almost all the mutant crystals. To prevent that, he had to seize the opportunity and jump onto the Stone Golems before the Sacred Night Bugs devoured them all. Even if he only managed to find one mutant crystal, that would already be a good result! The right time had come! With that thought, he did not hesitate to pick up the sword at his waist and leap towards the Stone Golem! While doing so, he shouted to Qin Shuang who was behind him, ¡°Hurry up and collect the mutant crystals!¡± Qin Shuang, who was practically scared out of her wits, immediately snapped back after hearing his order. Her hand trembled as she hurriedly picked up the dagger from her waist and replied, ¡°Al¡­ Alright!¡± The two of them jumped up one after the other, and Qin Shuang¡¯s red-clothed figure streaked across the dim light. Meanwhile, the Sacred Night Bugs that had already surpassed god-tier aptitude had become even stronger, reaching invincible proportions after being swallowed by the Sea Dragon earlier! They showed no signs of being devoured even in the face of a level 20 monster. Like a solid giant, they ¡®sliced¡¯ the golem into two, devouring all the places that had been slashed! At that moment, almost half of the Stone Golem had been swallowed! As for the Sacred Night Bugs that were devouring the Stone Golem¡¯s body, they were split into two, and then two into one! Their strength and numbers were visibly growing wildly without restraint! 200,000 became 300,000; 300,000 became 500,000; 500,000 became 600000! Most of these 600,000 or so bugs had the ability to split up and merge! The Stone Golem that was swallowed by that terrifying power struggled helplessly while shouting and roaring! It was as if an earthquake had occurred in the entire mine! Countless fine rocks, shattered dark crystals, and trees on the mountain were uprooted and quickly began collapsing from above! Su Hao held his sword while dodging and sprinting on the sliding, shaking landslide. Qin Shuang, who was about five meters behind Su Hao, had also found her frame of mind. She had rediscovered her fighting spirit, and although she was definitely not as good as Su Hao, she tried her utmost best not to drag him down. She made sure to follow Su Hao¡¯s moves behind him. At the same time, she took advantage of the situation and quickly collected the fallen mutant crystals. She even stabbed their swords into the golem¡¯s body and dug it up! The moment the mutant crystal was pulled out, the Stone Golem shrieked in pain and sounded as if it had been stabbed! ¡°Argh! You are an impudent being!¡± The Stone Golem¡¯s shouts became hoarser and softer. At that point, the worm had already devoured one-third of the Stone Golem! In just a few seconds, the huge Stone Golem was reduced to almost the same size as the swarm. Su Hao and Qin Shuang collected the materials from what remained of the Stone Golems! Finally, the last of the Stone Golem had been devoured! Su Hao¡¯s expression darkened as he was on top of the hill. He grabbed Qin Shuang¡¯s waist and slowly fell from the sky. As soon as he landed, the remaining one-third of the Stone Golem let out their last dying mumble. ¡°Im¡­possible ¡­¡± The huge Stone Golem had been devoured by hundreds of thousands of Sacred Night Bugs, leaving nothing behind. Qin Shuang¡¯s mind was still in a shocked daze as soon as she landed on the ground! Her legs unconsciously turned limp and she could not believe her eyes. Within a few seconds, everything in front of her seemed to have changed dramatically. What used to be a huge, terrifying, moving mountain had all but disappeared in just a few seconds¡­ Just how powerful were Su Hao¡¯s troops if they could devour a level 20 monster so easily? Such power was completely beyond her imagination-it was a power that even a god would bow before! She had the feeling that Su Hao¡¯s existence might be the change the entire continent needed! There might even be a day when he would rewrite the legends of the continent and surpass the gods! Even more remarkable was her opportunity to fight side-by-side with an individual like him. She felt that there would be nothing more memorable than what happened that day. Therefore, she decided that both Qin Shuang and the White Unicorn Castle would cease to exist on the Endless Continent! She wanted to be Su Hao¡¯s most loyal right-hand man! Having made her decision, she lowered her eyes and took a step forward to face Su Hao. Then, she knelt down on one knee, cupped her fists, and lowered her head. ¡°I have a request, Lord Su.¡± Su Hao¡¯s face remained indifferent as he asked, ¡°And what might that be?¡± Qin Shuang raised her respectful gaze and looked directly at Su Hao. ¡°I¡¯d like to become one of your civilians and join your city-state. May I?¡± Su Hao¡¯s eyes narrowed when she heard her question. Although her abilities were not top-notch, her best quality was her loyalty. With a little guidance, she might turn out to be a magnificent talent. Besides, he had no reason to refuse because he needed more useful and loyal people who were willing to follow him, After pondering ever so briefly about it, he nodded slightly and said, ¡°You may.¡± Chapter 40 - A Nightmare—The Second Invasion! Chapter 40 A Nightmare¡ªThe Second Invasion! Su Hao returned to the city-state with Qin Shuang He did a simple calculation of the number of crystals he obtained from that trip to the mine. The ones he obtained himself, plus the ones he collected with Qin Shuang, came to a total of 37 dark mutant crystals and about 67 other rare ones. Su Hao stored all of them in the warehouse and then went to see the dragon egg. At that very moment, the dragon egg-which was about as tall as a wooden table¡ªwas moving in front of Su Hao. However, the egg shell still showed no signs of cracking Su Hao placed a piece of dark mutant crystal next to the dragon egg, which seemed to feel the power of the dark mutant crystal. A black light then shone into his eyes! The fist-sized dark mutant crystal turned into a thick cloud of smoke and drifted toward the dragon egg. The next second, all the black smoke began swirling around the dragon egg. Crack! The eggshell had cracked! A light green dragon horn broke out of the eggshell, and a corner of the eggshell broke. Su Hao¡¯s eyes lit up when he saw that. The dark mutant crystal was very useful indeed. One was enough to speed up the ever-slow incubation of the Green Dragon egg. After using that dark mutant crystal, he still had 36 left, which was more than enough to raise his green dragon to a higher level. All of a sudden, a loud, panicked yell was heard from outside! ¡°My Lord! This is bad! The second wave of the invasion of darkness is here!¡± The leader of his militia was covered in blood. His right hand had been gnawed off, and he yelled out in agony as he spat out some blood! Su Hao¡¯s pupils trembled as he looked out of the window, and fear struck him as soon as he saw the bright red scene outside the window! What he saw was an endless swarm of red monsters that entered his city-state! All the civilians in the city were being devoured like ants by the endless red monsters! Even his 700,000 or so Sacred Night Bugs were being mercilessly devoured by the red monsters upon contact! The damage was extremely heavy! The Sacred Night Bugs, which were already beyond SSS-level and had the aptitude to surpass the gods, were being devoured! Su Hao stood on the windowsill and watched his 700,000-plus Sacred Night Bugs being reduced to dust in a few seconds! Impossible! Su Hao could not believe it! It was obvious that the beast tide in front of them was not as simple as the first one. Furthermore, there were level 25 beasts within the endless red wave of monsters! The level 25 beast was the size of two hills! ¡°A Black Tortoise!¡± There was a level 25 Black Tortoise during the second invasion, which brought an endless number of red monsters that were 10 times stronger than the first wave! Su Hao¡¯s eyes turned dark. He was unable to keep his usual calmness at this moment. The second invasion was already ten times stronger than the first invasion. Su Hao felt that it was the result of his extraordinary development. The invasion that the other lords dealt with was only about twice as difficult as the first. However, with his extraordinary development, his city-state, dozens of subjects, and more than 50 militia, he had become a god. Therefore, the second invasion was ten times more difficult than an ordinary one! At the same time, all the buildings in the city were devoured by the red monsters! In an instant, everything fell apart¡ªthe level five Holy Healing Spring, the level four Summoning Altar, the two level seven arrow towers, the towering Skyscraper Tower, and the two sub-castles that were more than 20 meters tall! Su Hao could see the frightened faces of all the citizens in the city-state! They fled frantically in all directions, hoping that a god would descend and save them! Alas, all of that remained nothing but hope. In just a second, countless red monsters treated them like peanuts and swallowed them mercilessly! The weak humans were like a drop of water in the ocean. Under that strong influence of nature, they appeared extremely weak and incompetent. The humans were completely powerless to resist at that moment. They could only wait for their demise in despair, and even the mere act of struggling had become something of a luxury! The endless red monsters razed the huge city into a flat land. Corpses, bones, and thick blood were stuck to the red monsters, giving off a rotten smell. Su Hao¡¯s body stiffened at that moment and could not say a word! He knew very well that his turn would come any second! At the same time, the mountain-sized Black Tortoise opened its terrifying blood-red eyes and attacked him! In a split second, Su Hao was jolted! He sat up from his bed in the room and discovered that his whole body was covered in cold sweat. After a few seconds, he realized that he had been dreaming! Then, he panted and lowered his eyes. He knew that this dream was not entirely fake. instead, it might be a warning or a reminder from the gods. He also realized that the second invasion in five days would not be as simple as he initially thought. The defense system of the city wall was too weak, and he had to lead his people to strengthen the city wall before the second invasion came. Moreover, the power of the second invasion in his dream was not completely out of bounds with reality. It was highly likely that there would be a being ten times more powerful than those from the first invasion. Those were the rules of the invasion in his previous life. the larger the territory and the more people there were, the more difficult it would be to face the invasion. The danger to one¡¯s territory and people would also be greater. His growth was already very far ahead, and the second invasion in five days would definitely be extremely terrifying! If the Black Tortoise in his dream really appeared in the second invasion, his city-state would not be able to feng it off at all. In his previous life, the Black Tortoise was a beast that only occured after the tenth invasion. For his rebirth, however, Su Hao concluded that the probability of encountering it during the second invasion was more than 90%! if he did not make the necessary preparations, his city-state would be reduced to ruins in five days! Therefore, it was necessary to strengthen the city wall. Although the city wall could not be the decisive factor to ensure that the Black Tortoise and other monsters could not enter the city-state, a stronger wall would definitely buy Su Hao a lot of time! On that basis, he needed to speed up the absorption and development of the Sacred Night Bugs. Getting the Holy Light Bugs to reach a million, and then turning the millions of them into the powerful Sacred Night Bugs was his priority. He could then get the Sacred Night Bugs to multiply and reach more than a million! By then, the Sacred Night Bugs would have enough power to resist the second invasion. However, that was not enough! He still needed to speed up the cultivation of his Green Dragon, for it was imperative that he got it to hatch before the second invasion arrived. Once the Green Dragon was born, the poison it spat out could quickly eliminate the normal red monsters that invaded the darkness! At that time, he would use the strong city walls to stall for time so the Green Dragon could get rid of the red monsters in the shortest time possible! That was the only way Su Hao could consolidate all his forces to deal with the level 25 Black Tortoise, whether in terms of manpower or the ability of a million Sacred Night Bugs! If all the preparatory work was successful, he was confident that he could take down a level 30 Black Tortoise too!