Chapter 74: Despair’s Darkest Hour!
Ma Yuanyi spoke while his entire body’s skin squirmed, each face showing pain and madness, and then a thunderous roar erupted from within him.
In an instant, it engulfed everyone present.
The players felt darkness before their eyes, as if falling into a bottomless abyss, losing all sensory functions.
【You are affected by "Abyssal Roar" and have fallen into a stunned state, lasting 5 seconds!】
The radius of this mental skill’s effect was extremely wide.
All eighty players fell into a stunned state and could not move.
At this moment, Ma Yuanyi raised the ridiculously large weapon in his hand—a giant hammer made up of over a thousand skulls, each skull seemingly coming to life, mouths crazily opening and closing.
The blood-colored lake beneath Ma Yuanyi’s feet began to boil violently, transforming into a massive red tide that collapsed toward the center, generating a powerful pulling force that dragged nearby players along with the retreating tide, finally pulling them close to Ma Yuanyi.
"Bad!"
Black-Eyed Rui Ge exclaimed in horror.
After absorbing the power of the blood lake, the pale skulls of the Thousand Skulls Giant Hammer turned blood-red, each skull brimming with boiling flames, exuding a suffocating aura of destruction.
The next moment!
Ma Yuanyi raised the giant hammer with both hands.
He slammed it heavily among the players.
It was like a small meteorite striking the earth, instantly unleashing a massive burst of energy, a blood-red flame shockwave with a diameter of a hundred meters, enveloping all the players present.
521 (Lethal Critical Hit!)
435 (Lethal Critical Hit!)
519 (Lethal Critical Hit!)
...
The blood-red flame shockwave swept through everything like a storm, and against it, the players’ fragile defenses and health were as weak as paper, utterly unable to withstand it; over a dozen players too close were directly turned into charred corpses, while others farther away were blown away by the shockwave.
Boom boom boom!
The entire camp trembled violently!
The impact of this strike was jaw-dropping!
The aftershock lasted at least ten seconds before it completely ceased!
The eighty players were scattered all around within a 200-meter radius, over ninety percent of them instantly killed, with only four or five players surviving by sheer luck or high equipment defense.
Too strong!
Too terrifying!
Utterly invincible!
What kind of terrifying power was this?
Both Ma Yuanyi and Jian Shuo were level 7 Abyssal beings, but their strength was worlds apart; could the difference between a Commander unit and an Elite unit really be this horrifying?
Ye Li Meng was one of the survivors.
He had fallen into a large pit over a hundred meters away.
Although Ye Li Meng was not instantly killed, he was now paralyzed, unable to even stand, completely losing his combat capability!
"Such disparity!"
"We can’t possibly win!"
"This monster is an invincible existence!"
Ma Yuanyi had shattered the players’ confidence with a single strike.
At this moment, Ye Li Meng realized that even if all eighty members of the Fourth Calamity Army were deployed, even if they could continuously resurrect after death, it would be meaningless against such an overwhelmingly powerful opponent—they simply could not defeat such a being in a short time.
Extremely thick health bar!
Extremely strong defense!
Extremely wide-area control skills!
Plus devastating and massive area-of-effect attacks.
Ye Li Meng could not think of any way to counter it or any shortcut to victory; not even the Lord who had once shone brightly in Hexi Village gave off such a terrifying sense of oppressive power and shock.
After Ma Yuanyi crushed the entire Fourth Calamity Army with a single blow, although he knew a few stragglers had survived, he seemed disinclined to deliver the final blow, for from beginning to end, Ma Yuanyi had never taken these weak Star-Favored Ones seriously.
"The time has come!"
Ma Yuanyi looked up at the sky.
The sky’s light suddenly dimmed.
The Firmament Rift spanning the sky underwent a strange change.
Ye Li Meng vaguely saw that deep within the gigantic rift, an unspeakable existence was awakening, as if countless tentacle-like things were prying the rift wider, followed by large amounts of dark red mist being released.
"Could it be..."
Endless dark red energy spread like a curtain across the sky, covering the swirling star clouds and the starlight they emitted, plunging the entire world into darkness and chaos.
The Day of Ultimate Darkness had arrived!
This was a periodic strange phenomenon of the Abyss World!
Ye Li Meng discovered that the Day of Ultimate Darkness was not a pitch-black darkness where one could not see one’s own hand.
Once the abyssal energy blanketed all starlight like a curtain, the land was covered in a deep red filter, as if stepping into an old-fashioned darkroom used for developing photos, giving a very uncomfortable feeling overall.
"This moment has finally arrived!"
Ma Yuanyi’s chaotic voice was filled with excitement, as he raised the Thousand Skulls Giant Hammer high toward the sky, "O Will of the Abyss born from the Great Chaos, lend your strength to your people!"
Deep within the Firmament Rift.
A consciousness formed of billions of chaotic, insane thoughts seemed to respond.
The abyssal energy flowing through the sky immediately converged above Ma Yuanyi’s head, eventually forming a spiraling energy pillar, rapidly pouring into Ma Yuanyi’s body, granting him the power to restart the nightmare.
"Revive!"
"My servants!"
Ripples radiated from Ma Yuanyi’s body, distorting the nearby time and space, plunging the entire Luoshui Execution Ground camp into a black domain; empowered by the Day of Ultimate Darkness, Ma Yuanyi created a new round of abyssal nightmare on the spot.
Once a nightmare was restarted.
Everything within the nightmare would be recreated!
In the terrified and despairing eyes of Ye Li Meng and the few surviving players.
Jian Shuo, Feng Xu, Zhou Bin, Bao Hong, four powerful Abyssal beings, returned one by one from the endless darkness and chaos, their auras not weakened at all, but slightly stronger than before.
And it was not just four mini-bosses!
The Yellow Turban Headless Fiend Soldiers, Yellow Turban Headless Warlocks, Luoshui Butchers, and Luoshui Fiendish Cavalry.
Hundreds of elite monsters were recreated in the nightmare’s dreamscape, not weakened by their previous deaths, but all slightly strengthened.
Forced monster respawn!
How was this even playable?
The Fourth Calamity Army had spent three days burning down the deserted village.
It should have been a glorious victory, greatly weakening the Abyss forces, but now it all became meaningless; with the arrival of the Day of Ultimate Darkness, all Abyssal beings had been refreshed.
Soon after.
A Luoshui Butcher approached.
Ye Li Meng was ruthlessly torn to pieces.
A few minutes later, Ye Li Meng and the few other players revived at the main camp, and when they saw the changes in the sky, they immediately knew that this was not just a terrible nightmare—things were developing in the worst possible direction!
"What did you say?"
"The monsters all respawned!"
"How are we supposed to fight now!"
"We’re doomed! Completely doomed! We’re dead for sure!"
"......"
The overwhelming power of Ma Yuanyi had already plunged the players into pessimism and even despair, and now, learning that Jian Shuo and the other four mini-bosses, along with hundreds of elite monsters, had all resurrected.
The players’ proud achievements had turned out to be completely ineffective.
They had not managed to weaken the Abyss forces in the slightest.
Let alone eliminate the threats before the Day of Ultimate Darkness arrived!
This was a crushing blow!
Now, the Abyssal Commander Ma Yuanyi was leading his forces out of the Core Polluted Zone, and it would not take long for them to reach the main camp, where a battle that would decide the fate of the players and the territory was about to erupt.
But how could they fight?
The players were utterly helpless!
The gap in strength was simply too vast!
There was absolutely no way to clear this quest!
Were they just going to watch helplessly as the territory fell and everything was reset?
"Wuwu!"
"I’m so unwilling!"
"Why is it like this?"
"Was all our effort for nothing?"
"Damn it, even if it’s a sure loss, I’ll fight for the territory until the last moment!"
"I don’t want to lose my qualification to play, I don’t want Twisted Three Kingdoms to shut down, but what can we do now?"
"......"
The Fourth Calamity Army fell into despair.
Many players couldn’t help but shed tears.
Hang Yu had been silently observing from the shadows, and he knew it was time to step onto the stage.
Although the Fourth Calamity Army had grown rapidly, the game had been open for less than ten days, and with the players’ current strength, it was absolutely impossible to contend with a challenge of the Abyssal Commander’s level.
For the players.
This was a true dead end!
And as the Lord, it was time for him to act!
Only by intervening when the players had sunk into extreme despair could the best effect be achieved!
Hang Yu usually would not personally engage in territory expansion, leaving it to the players blessed with tenfold drop rates, but occasionally he had to show off and brush his presence, to maintain his awe-inspiring and supreme image in the players' hearts!
Now, the darkest hour had arrived!
It was time for the Lord’s grand performance!