Chapter 126: Dungeon Rewards
Fastest Hand at SF Express stared blankly at the dark, terrifying landscape before him. His throat felt dry, and his voice quavered slightly. “We… shouldn’t be that unlucky, right?”
He nudged the courier beside him. “Lucky Little Yellow, what do you think?”
Feeling the icy, sinister wind howling past the peaks, Flash Delivery Yellow Knight pulled his collar tight and shivered. “I can’t say for sure. Will Sister Cai’s bad luck cancel out my good luck, or make it worse?”
Peace and Violence pushed his spectacles up the bridge of his nose. He raised his wrist, calmly checking his mechanical watch, and spoke in his usual steady tone: “Don’t worry, we won’t run into bad luck. In fact, we probably won’t even see the Ghost King today.”
Lin Huai checked her system clock as well. Two hours and forty minutes had passed since they first crossed into the trial. With only twenty minutes remaining on the countdown, tracking down and slaying a stage-two boss was completely out of the question.
She made a quick, decisive call. “Everyone, halt your advance! Do not push deeper into the peaks. We only have twenty minutes left on the clock. Our goal now is to eliminate as many monsters as possible. Pour all your firepower into racking up kill points!”
Dragon Emerging from the Sea chuckled softly, raising his heavy firearm. “If we want to pull aggro, wouldn’t a bullet be faster?”
Before the words fully left his mouth, he took aim and squeezed the trigger. A glowing tracer round whistled across the dark valley, striking dead center on a tattered, rotting war banner hanging from a cliff face.
Bang!
The gunshot tore through the quiet gorge like thunder. It startled the countless abominations lurking in the shadows, instantly waking the dark valley from its slumber.
The moment the echo died down, savage roars and blood-curdling wails erupted from every direction. Swarms of shadowy figures tore out from the darkness, surging toward the squad at terrifying speed.
Lin Huai did not hesitate. She pulled out an intermediate Fire Wall Talisman and paired it with an intermediate Gale Talisman, hurling both into the bottleneck ahead.
The Fire Wall Talisman erupted into a roaring barrier of flames ten meters high. Simultaneously, the Gale Talisman whipped up a ten-meter-wide tornado, howling with category-ten winds.
The violent gale caught the blazing wall, dragging the fire upward into a spinning, fiery column of death. The crimson blaze lit up the entire valley, swallowing the first wave of rushing ghouls whole. That single combined strike vaporized hundreds of mid-tier monsters into ash!
In the second stage, the concentration of mid-tier fiends jumped dramatically. Basic low-tier talismans barely scratched their tough hides; only intermediate talismans could clear the tide effectively.
However, higher-tier talismans drained spiritual energy rapidly. Unleashing two intermediate charms at once burned through nearly half of Lin Huai’s spiritual pool.
Still, the fiery wall did its job, buying precious breathing room for her teammates to establish their defensive lines.
As the roaring vortex gradually burned out, the rest of the squad adapted. Following Lin Huai’s lead, they paired basic Bright Fire Talismans with basic Wind Talismans to unleash smaller, roving fire twisters.
While these miniature vortexes had a tighter blast radius, they moved across the snow independently. They held the charging hordes back while casting a wide perimeter of light, allowing the squad’s marksmen to pick off monsters with lethal precision.
The squad fought like a well-oiled machine until a crisp, server-wide chime rang in their ears:
[Attention, all players: The Monsters Brawl trial has officially concluded!]
[Top three teams on the instance points leaderboard:]
- [Bone Ashes Mixed with Rice Squad]
- [Honey Blood Ice Orange Squad]
- [Chaikofu Driver Squad]
[Congratulations to player Bone Ashes Mixed with Rice for earning the title of Best Captain! Rewarded with: Captain’s Token x1.]
[Congratulations to player Milk Tea Seven Parts Sugar for discovering a hidden instance location! Special reward granted!]
[Instance rewards will be delivered within ten minutes. All players, please check your inboxes!]
As the system assistant finished the announcement, glowing teleportation circles flared beneath everyone’s boots. In the blink of an eye, the dark valley vanished, and every survivor was deposited back on their own stretch of the survival highway.
Lin Huai engaged the autonomous driving module and walked up to the panoramic sunroom on the second floor. She sank into the soft cushions of her sofa, waiting for her loot to arrive. Dong Xiaobao floated over affectionately, settling gently on her shoulder.
Just as Old Hei had hinted, the rewards for taking first place were extraordinarily generous.
Her personal MVP reward was the Captain’s Token. Lin Huai picked up the heavy, black-and-gold medallion and scanned its properties:
[Captain’s Token: Allows the bearer to bypass all instance entry rules and physical obstacles to instantly summon all squad members together. Restricted for use within the Monsters Brawl trial.]
A satisfied smile touched Lin Huai’s lips. With this token in hand, the next time the brawl opened, her team could skip the introductory maze and drop directly into the second stage.
The general squad reward granted each member a random category of inventory to be doubled. When Lin Huai opened her storage panel, she couldn’t help but marvel at the fortune Zone 444 brought her.
Her inventory held various resource tabs: daily survival goods, rations, raw building blocks, and spiritual materials. For Lin Huai, the system had randomly selected her special materials tab!
Aside from unique quest items like official passes and undertaker permits—which could not be duplicated—all of her rare blueprints, crafting stations, and upgrade components doubled on the spot!
She now had two intermediate crafting benches and two component printers. Lin Huai smiled at the sight; Old Wang wouldn’t need to pester her for workshop time anymore.
Best of all, her stockpiles of Blood Jades and Memory Crystal Orbs had doubled as well, surpassing the required threshold.
Her hearse and the jade coffin could finally be upgraded to Level 6!
Taking a steadying breath, Lin Huai brought up the vehicle management panel and hit the [Upgrade] button without a second thought.
Since the transformation took time and caused heavy structural shifts, she stepped outside into the cold air. She set up an outdoor folding table and chair on the snow-covered asphalt, sitting down with Dong Xiaobao to wait out the process.
Top survivors like Master Cloud Cliff and Old Mo of Western Hunan could afford to prioritize leveling up their personal skill cards and equipment to conceal their true combat rating, but Lin Huai couldn’t take that path. Her ultimate trump card was the ancient jade coffin, and the coffin’s strength was tied directly to the level of her vehicle. Pushing the vehicle upgrade was her only option.
Glancing at her personal skill inventory, her Time Reversal card was currently Level 1. With the rewards from this trial, she could advance it to Level 2, extending the rewind window by another full minute.
Meanwhile, Dragon Emerging from the Sea had already upgraded his Damage Reflection card to Level 3, sitting just a few rare catalysts away from Level 4.
After sorting through her gear, Lin Huai brought up the public chat channel.
Every participant who survived the trial had received rewards, with higher kill counts yielding richer payouts.
Yet very few people were celebrating.
Instead, the district channel was flooded with bitter arguments and accusations as teams broke apart in public.
The Painted Skin Ghosts targeted the darkest doubts in the human heart. Squads that encountered these shapeshifters often walked out full of mutual suspicion, pointing fingers, throwing blame, and disbanding in anger. It was a harsh psychological trial that nearly every survivor was forced to face.
Noticing that the arguing crowd included not just casual players, but even members of her own Elite Guild, Lin Huai’s brow furrowed. She immediately sent a direct command to Peace and Violence, having him lock down the channel with an administrator mute.
The silence applied to everyone except her. She had originally planned to let them cool off on their own, but remembering how petty squabbles had torn districts apart in her past life, she felt she needed to speak up.
After all, this was her Zone 444.
[Bone Ashes Mixed with Rice]: The Painted Skin Ghosts specialize in attacking the mind. If you cannot place absolute trust in the companions standing at your back, you will never survive long enough to see the second stage.
[Bone Ashes Mixed with Rice]: I cannot force you all to become best friends. But if anyone tries to poison the stability and mutual trust of Zone 444, I will not hesitate to personally send you off to become a Road Safety Ambassador.
[Bone Ashes Mixed with Rice]: The district chat is muted for twenty-four hours. If anyone has an objection to my ruling, come find my hearse directly.
