The Dao of Reincarnation (423-424) (Patreon)

Chapter 423: Player of the Fourth Scourge (Part 3)

Su Chen had no idea what thoughts occupied the mind of Xu Le, the "treasure-delivery boy."

Even if he had known, he would only have smiled indifferently and added, "Child, you are too attached to appearances."

At present, Su Chen had neither the leisure nor the interest to spare Xu Le a thought. He did not even care enough to look up who Xu Le was.

"You... how can you be this strong!"

A black-armored undead knight stared at the youth before him in utter disbelief. It had taken only a casual swing of the sword...

Su Chen casually picked up the items the black-armored knight had dropped.

This was the second boss he had found.

[Congratulations, Player Xiao Chen. You have slain the regional boss Black-Armored Knight.]

[Congratulations, Player. You have gained a large amount of experience. Cultivation has broken through to Rank Three, Level Eight.]

Killing monsters and leveling up was something Su Chen handled with practiced ease.

After dealing with the Black-Armored Knight, he glanced at the lesser monsters that had already fled far away. He did not even bother to finish them off and set out for the next location.

...

Xu Le smiled. Gripping equipment obtained from the future, he far surpassed these novice rookies. While others were still locked in cunning battles against a single chicken, he was already slaughtering entire flocks. In less than half a day, his level had reached Rank One, Level Three.

"If the Diligent Study talent were still mine, I might already be at Rank One, Level Four."

Xu Le stared at the experience bar that had frozen in place and felt deep regret. He had traded a Venerable-rank talent for a King-rank one. And such a trash King-rank talent at that. He did not even dare to use it.

Unfortunately, there was no "if."

Just as Xu Le was still mourning his lost Venerable-rank talent, a prompt sounded in his mind.

It was not only him. Every person in the region heard the same announcement.

[Player Xiao Chen of Village No. ... has successfully slain the regional boss Black-Armored Knight. Players of the Anfeng City region may now proceed to other city regions and engage in trade and communication with players from those regions.]

"Xiao Chen... is that the same Xiao Chen I'm thinking of?"

"You've got to be kidding me, big brother. I finally managed to beat a chicken, and now you're telling me someone has already soloed the regional boss?"

"I don't believe it. Oh god, I don't dare open my eyes. Please let this all be a hallucination."

"..."

The first time they heard that someone named Xiao Chen had slain the novice village boss, they might still have felt jealousy and speculation. But now, while they were still killing chickens, someone had already soloed a regional boss. The insurmountable gap left them wondering just what kind of person this was.

Bitterness filled Xu Le's heart. That person had slain the regional boss even earlier than in the previous life.

The reason was self-evident.

He felt a profound sense of powerlessness. Even with the accumulation of his past life, catching up to that person remained far too difficult. Even catching a distant glimpse of his back had become a luxury.

Xu Le knew full well how powerful a regional boss was. To newcomers like them, it was nothing short of a nightmare. Yet in less than half a day, it had been soloed.

And of that half day, the greater portion had likely been spent simply traveling.

Su Chen's approach was simple.

He farmed bosses.

Bosses from different cities.

Wherever he walked, he farmed.

As a result, players in many regions were left completely bewildered.

While they were still debating whether to team up against chickens or ducks, their regional bosses had already been cleared by someone else.

At first they assumed it was merely someone snatching bosses.

Yet they discovered that the person named Xiao Chen simply left after clearing each regional boss.

He truly was snatching bosses. There was just one problem.

They could leave the cities, yet because the novice bosses remained uncleared, they could not leave their villages.

This left countless players crying out that a cheater must exist.

Before anyone realized it, Su Chen had already reached the capital of this kingdom.

Here stood the kingdom's final boss.

Su Chen intended to clear the instance before leaving.

The soldiers on the city walls still had no idea what was happening.

A great sword unleashed a torrent of light.

The supposedly impregnable walls shattered with a deafening roar.

The experience Su Chen gained sent his experience bar surging forward by a huge margin.

Within the royal capital, powerful experts flew out one after another.

"Who dares! Such audacity, to force your way into the royal capital!"

The capital contained quite a few Rank Five experts.

Yet the moment they appeared and their words fell, the fury on their faces turned to blankness and terror.

A destructive aura that blanketed the sky descended in an instant.

[Congratulations, Player Xiao Chen. You have destroyed the Decaying Kingdom and received a large amount of experience. Cultivation has broken through to Rank Five, Level Nine.]

With a single move, the cultivators of the kingdom, along with the final boss who had yet to show himself, all transformed into warm experience points.

Aside from the vast experience, Su Chen also obtained numerous item cards and rewarded resurrection coins. He paid them little mind and casually stored them in his spatial storage.

...

At this moment, more than half a month had already passed.

Players had begun to get on the right track and no longer debated whether to kill chickens or ducks.

They gradually started hunting jackals, wolves, tigers, and leopards. The top players among them could team up to hunt demonic beasts. Though they often paid a heavy price, the rewards were equally great and allowed them to pull far ahead.

Xu Le was now even further ahead. While the strongest players were still active inside the villages, teaming up to hunt Rank One demonic beasts, he had already left the village and begun hunting Rank Two demonic beasts alone. One step ahead meant every step ahead. His current strength was already enough to slaughter ordinary players as if they were chickens and ducks.

In his previous life, it had taken him more than a full month to reach this stage.

"It will soon be a month. At that time, the 'Mandate of Heaven' game will send us out of this world and back to the original one."

Their current strength was still weak. They could not remain logged into the game for long.

[Congratulations, Player Xiao Chen. You have slain the Frost Wolf Kingdom boss Frost Wolf King. The passage allowing players of the Frost Wolf Kingdom to travel to other kingdoms has been opened.]

"???"

"What did I just hear?"

"The instance boss has been cleared?"

"Damn it, I haven't even left the novice village, and you're telling me the major instance boss is gone?"

"You've got to be joking!"

"Xiao Chen, it's Xiao Chen again. Just what kind of existence is this person?"

"..."

At this point, many players had gone numb. This was no longer a matter of a large gap. This was a difference of entirely different dimensions. Even though Xu Le had long known this scene would arrive, when it truly did, he still felt an overwhelming bitterness.

Chapter 424: Player of the Fourth Scourge (Part 4)

Su Chen looked at the familiar surroundings.

By now, everyone had received the recognition of the "Fate" game.

They could freely log in and out.

"Truly black-hearted!"

Su Chen felt that aside from his Saint-level cultivation, a layer of completely mismatched power had appeared out of thin air within his body. Roughly... it was only about one-tenth of what he had mastered inside the game.

"Young Master, did everything go smoothly?"

The butler at his side saw that Su Chen was the first to appear in the square, and his expression lit up with joy.

Su Chen nodded. Others were beginning to appear one after another.

"Let's go home. This place is no longer suitable for lingering."

The butler did not understand the meaning behind the words, yet he still followed Su Chen's instructions.

After Su Chen left, the players who had appeared gradually recovered from their daze.

"Holy shit, where's Boss Xiao Chen?"

"Boss Xiao Chen is actually from the same city as me!"

"I can't even think of words to describe Boss Xiao Chen anymore. I can only use 'holy shit' and 'badass'."

"You can still manage 'badass'? All I've got left is 'holy shit'!"

"..."

At that moment, the young masters and young ladies of the aristocratic schools, upon learning Su Chen's identity, went wild with the desire to catch a glimpse of the legendary man's true face. Unfortunately, Su Chen had already left one step ahead.

Many of the instructors still present also looked completely bewildered.

What were they looking for? Xiao Chen?

That seemed to be a person.

Just what had this person done to drive so many people into such a frenzy?

Had he snatched bosses?

That would indeed be enough to drive people mad.

Yet it did not take long for them to become just like the students.

"What? The instance has been cleared?"

"You've got to be joking!"

"..."

Only one month had passed. Even clearing a novice village boss would mark someone as the top talent of an entire province.

Soloing a regional boss had never appeared on Tiancheng Star. Clearing an entire instance in a single month was beyond imagination. They even began to suspect a system malfunction.

Unfortunately, the system did not malfunction.

"Is this something a human can actually do?"

"No... unprecedented, truly unprecedented. Just what kind of existence is that Xiao Chen?"

In that moment, everyone went wild.

Xu Le gave a bitter smile. He looked in a certain direction. That man had probably already left by now.

Suddenly his expression froze.

Over there, a terrifying aura had erupted.

"Venerable-rank... there is actually a Venerable-rank expert making a move in the real world!"

Venerable-rank was the title given to Rank Eight (Nirvana) powerhouses.

Tiancheng Star should not have more than a few Venerable-rank experts!

And this aura was not from only one!

Xu Le felt that events were beginning to exceed expectations and deviate from the future in his memories.

At that moment, the flying vehicle jolted.

Su Chen, who had been resting with his eyes closed, opened them.

The bustling streets and buildings before him were destroyed in an instant by a terrifying force.

That force was enough to easily erase the entire urban district, yet it had not done so.

Everything seemed aimed solely at Su Chen.

"Is it handled?"

"It should be handled."

"The Young Master went to such lengths and even had us act in person just to kill him? Isn't that a bit of overkill?"

"..."

Faintly, two figures conversed with each other. Though their words carried a trace of disdain, they still dutifully began searching for any traces of survivors.

"Who are you two looking for?"

The two figures looked at each other in astonishment. The voice had come from behind them.

They turned and saw a youth floating in midair, quietly watching them.

His blue-and-white shirt was completely intact, without a single speck of dust.

Behind him, a luxurious flying vehicle hovered in the air. An elderly man on the vehicle looked at them with an expression that seemed to mourn their fate in advance.

"Just how desperate must one be to attempt an assassination on the Young Master?"

Su Chen's strength was something the chairman of the Xiao Group and the two people at Su Chen's side understood better than anyone. Even before entering the "Mandate of Heaven" game, if Su Chen wished, he could erase this entire planet with his own power alone. He simply had no desire to expose that terrifying strength.

Two fools who did not know the meaning of death actually wanted to kill their Young Master.

The two men knew nothing of Butler Xiao's thoughts.

They only knew one thing.

Danger!

They had not sensed the youth's appearance at all.

They wanted to flee, yet a far more serious problem had arisen.

Their minds and bodies seemed to have separated.

Their bodies refused to move and remained frozen in place.

The youth before them watched the two with an expressionless face.

"Speak. Name your mastermind."

"Forget it. Even if I asked, you would not talk. Too troublesome."

Before the two could open their mouths, Su Chen placed a hand on each of their heads. In less than a moment, looking at the two now vacant-eyed men, he understood the entire sequence of events.

With a casual motion, he shattered the two peak powerhouses of this planet, causing them to vanish from this world.

As a spatial rift opened and then closed, Su Chen's figure disappeared from the spot as well.

"Young Master, please be a little more careful!"

Butler Xiao silently mourned for the mastermind behind the scenes.

...

The Long Family was the strongest clan on Tiancheng Star.

Long Zhou was a genius the Long Family had not produced in ten thousand years.

Yet Long Zhou possessed another identity. He had come from the future.

Originally the unmatched genius of the Long Family, he should have enjoyed unlimited glory and become the strongest.

Until that person appeared.

His status as the strongest became a joke. The mere aftershock of a single slap had nearly killed him.

The Long Family had been effortlessly destroyed.

But that was in the future.

Now he had been reborn.

He remembered that the terrifying man had only just registered and awakened as a Player.

There was still time for everything!

Long Zhou knew that if he wished to spare the Long Family from the fate of annihilation, he had to strangle that person in the cradle ahead of time.

Therefore, he had awakened two old ancestors of the clan.

Long Zhou's reason was that he had awakened the ability to foresee the future. Although it sounded impossible, because Long Zhou was the greatest genius the Long Family had seen in ten thousand years, the clan chose to believe him.

They dispatched two Venerable-rank old ancestors to eliminate Su Chen.

Thinking of the miserable state he had endured after the Long Family's destruction in the future, Long Zhou was determined never to allow that outcome again.

"By now Xiao Chen should already be dead."

Long Zhou thought of that terrifying man whose experiences bordered on legend. In a single month, he had become a Player comparable to King-rank.

In less than a year after that, he had become the strongest on Tiancheng Star.

It had been simply too fast, so fast that Long Zhou had been completely unable to deploy forces or catch up. All he could do was eliminate this terrifying enemy in advance.

While Long Zhou was still thinking, the Long Family estate suddenly shook. It was the clan's grand formation.

No...

Long Zhou's pupils contracted sharply. He raised his head toward the sky.

A youthful figure slowly descended. The terrifying grand formation of the Long Family touched the figure's body and instantly collapsed into pieces.

"This is... this is..."

Long Zhou suddenly found it difficult to breathe.

This scene was one he had recalled in his mind countless times.

Back then, the Long Family... had been destroyed exactly like this!

"Impossible. How is this possible? At this point in time, Xiao Chen should only have just successfully registered as a Player."

"He should be dead. Why has he appeared here again?"

Long Zhou could not understand. His eyes were filled with despair.