Chapter 1 Crisis and Situation

Let's set aside the escalating crisis within the game space for now and rewind time slightly to midnight... to observe the situation of the four final teams.

...

As the clock neared midnight, the twenty players from Hell's Front, the Good-for-Nothing Alliance, Sengoku, and Order had all arrived in their respective landing spaces, awaiting orders.

At eleven fifty-nine and fifty-seven seconds PM (real-time), the system's voice rang in their ears simultaneously:

[Peak Conquest S2 Finals are about to begin. Your data will be loaded in thirty seconds. Please do not leave the landing space.]

After the prompt, there was twenty seconds (game time) of silence, and then...

[Ten-second countdown before loading: nine, eight, seven... two, one.]

The instant the countdown ended, the players transformed into white light and were teleported.

[Loading complete. You are currently participating in the Peak Conquest S2 Finals.]

[This mode provides a scr...]

But the loading screen only displayed two lines of text before it was interrupted.

And then... nothing more.

...

Nether Kingdom, Boundless Maze.

When the players came to their senses, they were already in the script world, with the ability to move.

"Oh? Five people..." Feng Bujue showed no surprise at the anomaly during the teleportation. He simply looked at his four teammates beside him and muttered, "It seems... due to the problem during loading, the spectator mechanism failed to operate smoothly..."

"Brother Jue... what's the situation this time?" Xiao Tan could deduce from Brother Jue's expression that... the latter must know something.

"If the information I obtained is correct... then, at the moment we started teleporting, Link and Ayd already began their invasion of the game space," Feng Bujue replied. "The glitch during loading should be a side effect of their operation."

"Where did you get the information?" Ruoyu asked, looking at him. "And... why didn't you tell us this information beforehand?"

"There was no need to tell you in advance..." Feng Bujue spread his hands. "Anyway, it's not too late to tell you now." He paused. "As for the source of my information... many."

"Twenty-three, right?" Ruoyu immediately stated.

"Uh... how did you know?" Brother Jue was stunned after being exposed.

Ruoyu calmly replied, "The only organizations that could provide you with this kind of information are [Z] or [Origin]. The latter is currently led by Lute alone. If she had contacted you, she should have brought you the [Kongtong Seal] and the [Na Yuan Che Sui Powder] as well. But when the character data was displayed before the match, those two items were not in your knapsack, so I can basically judge that you haven't had contact with Lute herself or someone she sent."

"But... there are many Derivatives from the [Z] organization who can bring me information," Feng Bujue continued. "How do you know it must be Twenty-Three?"

"Because you were vague when you answered," Ruoyu replied.

"Well..." Brother Jue was speechless. "That... there's a reason."

"I'm not interested in listening for now," Ruoyu coldly replied. "Say anything you want after the match is over and we're offline."

"Okay... okay..." Feng Bujue really had no temper this time.

Looking at the scene before them, Xiao Tan, Xiao Ling, and Huajian all revealed expressions of schadenfreude. It had to be said... opportunities to witness Brother Jue's loss of composure were rare, but each time it gave people a strange sense of pleasure.

"Ahem!" Two seconds later, Feng Bujue cleared his throat and changed the subject. "Well, then... let's talk about serious matters." He consciously raised his voice. "After months of hard work, I have basically grasped the movements of all parties in the 'Twilight of the Gods' event, and have joined forces with Billy, Zhuanjiezun, Dianhe Wang, and the Phantom Demon Church and other forces to set up a grand scheme... It can be said that I already have a winning hand in this game in the main universe today. I don't care about the people in the other teams at all; what I care about is the impact of this event on the next version, that is... the 'future' of the main universe."

"If I'm not mistaken..." Xiao Ling then interjected, "In this 'future'... the Four Pillars of Gods will be replaced by some guys who are familiar with you, right?"

"That's my goal, whether it can be achieved... depends on whether the progress of the plan goes smoothly," Feng Bujue replied. "But in any case... the Four Pillars of Gods have become yesterday's news, their era of dominance has come to an end..." At this point, his expression became serious, "At this moment, we are at a critical time node that is enough to change the structure of the main universe, and everything we do next will have a profound impact on the future here."

"No way..." Huajian then interjected in a rather puzzled and doubtful tone, "Isn't the future of the main universe controlled by the system?"

"Hmph... good question." Feng Bujue chuckled, "Before today, that was indeed the case, but it won't be the case in the future..." He paused for half a second, and slowly said, "'Twilight of the Gods' is an irreversible major process in the game's main program. As early as the S1 finals, I glimpsed relevant information through Zero's prediction program. That is to say, up to this point, all major events that have occurred in the main universe are 'predestined'."

After a second's pause, he changed the subject, "But... the world line after this event is uncertain. Because from this stage onwards, the influence of the 'player' group on the main universe... has reached a level that the system cannot fully control."

"Not really..." Xiao Tan said after hearing this, "Whether from the number of people or combat power, players and NPCs are not on the same level... Not to mention, there are so many different planets in the main universe, and there are a large number of people on each planet, and there are countless individuals with extremely strong combat power. The system can control the world lines where these creatures are, so the impact of our players shouldn't be anything, right?"

"Guiding the 'world line' has nothing to do with the combat power of those being guided, the key lies in its dimension," Feng Bujue replied, "Let me give you the simplest example... For example, you go to play a fighting game with Dragon Ball as the theme, Vegeta is stronger than you, right? But you can control him with a controller, you can make him fight whoever you want, you can make him stand and be beaten, and you can make him die."

"Well..." Xiao Tan pondered, "I see." He paused, "However, there is still one thing I don't understand... Although we are higher in dimension, after entering Thriller Paradise, we are equal to lowering ourselves by one dimension; under this premise, the system is still like half a God to us... Even if the overall strength of the players is relatively high now, do we really have the ability to surpass the system's macro control?"

"Of course, we can." Feng Bujue replied with full confidence, "In Thriller Paradise, this data world, 'prediction programs' are just math in the end... When event A occurs, program A makes some kind of response, and then there is result A, which then triggers event B... Countless such calculations are superimposed to form a complete blueprint for the future." He raised his head. "But... we humans are not some 'program A', we are an 'uncertain factor', no matter how advanced the optical brain is, it cannot predict the future intertwined with humans with 100% accuracy."

"Then..." At this time, Huajian asked again, "From the opening of the game to today, how has the system ensured that the world line has not deviated in the past seven months?"

"The system is just operating normally, there are no special measures," Feng Bujue replied, "I just said that 'from this stage onwards, the influence of players on the main universe has only just surpassed the control of the system', in the first seven months... as Xiao Tan said, the overall strength of our players was still too poor, even if the dimensions of thought are different, we still can't do anything to the 'God' of this world."

"So..." In that instant, Ruoyu suddenly cast a sharp look at Feng Bujue and threw out a piercing question, "...Are you going to play the role of 'God' today?"

"Hehe... man proposes, God disposes." Feng Bujue laughed, "Even if we can't go against the heavens, we can still deceive them..."

Before he could finish speaking, his smugness had already flowed out of him along with his cheapness.

"Enough gloating..." Ruoyu still replied expressionlessly, "Just talk about the plan..."