Chapter 60-Game Descent: I Am the Sole Player
Chapter 60
[Congratulations to player Harper Brown for slaying the Level 50 player "Serpent King"!]
[Congratulations to player Harper Brown for unlocking the achievement "King Slayer." Reward item: "Regenerative Snake Shed." Player Message Board unlocking... Message Board is now live!]
The mechanical voice sounded in everyone's ears. The world fell silent for a beat, then erupted in simultaneous cheers — another thrilling global broadcast!
[Level 50! There are already monsters that have reached Level 50?]
[Last time Harper posted in the channel she was only Level 29. She couldn't have been above 35 when she killed the Serpent King — she's insane!]
[Hearing this broadcast — no exaggeration — I actually cried. Countless people are out there fighting this shitty world alongside me]
[By the way, do you think the Tyrant has reached Level 50?]
[Harper has already climbed to fourth place. The experience from a Level 50 pack is insane — so jealous]
[The Message Board is the real big deal! Everyone go check it out!]
[Finally some good news!]
Level 50 was a distant, unreachable tier for the vast majority of players — and yet another terrifying monster had been brought down by a human.
More importantly, a new feature on the game panel had been unlocked. This was the second piece of news benefiting all of humanity's players, following the first global broadcast triggered by the Tyrant that had unlocked the channel function!
How could anyone not be excited?
"Shit! Holy Shit!"
A blood-drenched figure pried open the giant serpent's jaws and crawled out on all fours. She grabbed the aerial roots of a mangrove tree and hauled herself onto the bank.
The serpent's hundred-meter-long carcass spanned the entire river channel. Its blood had dyed the water crimson. Even the mangrove roots along the bank seemed to have drunk their fill, turning a deeper shade of red. The literal river of blood made the entire rainforest tremble. Countless creatures hidden within the jungle caught the scent of terrifying carnage.
Harper Brown clutched a root in one hand, feet planted in the muddy bank, pointing at the serpent's corpse and cursing nonstop. Her voice was powerful enough to frighten away nearby mutated creatures that had been edging closer.
She didn't stop until her lungs nearly gave out.
Harper wiped her face with a rough hand. Her vision was still tinted red. She tore off a strip of the tattered cloth clinging to her body, took out a knife, and sliced open a thick vine wrapped around a tree. Clean sap flowed out and dampened the cloth. She used it to wipe around her eyes.
Having managed to clear most of the blood splattered around her eyes, Harper Brown gazed out at the now-silent rainforest. The creases at the corners of her eyes relaxed slightly.
For the time being, no reckless mutated creature would dare approach.
From Level 33 to Level 45 in a single leap — enough to scrape by for a few more days.
She knew plenty of restless predators were still lurking in the shadows, watching and waiting. After all, human players were the richest experience packs around. And she was probably the last human left in this endless rainforest.
Before entering this jungle, Harper Brown had been a fisherwoman who occasionally moonlighted as a wilderness guide.
Already 52 years old, her finances were modest and her family reasonably happy. Her eldest daughter had given birth to a beautiful girl this year, named Grace. Just like that, she had become a grandmother.
To give the family's newest member a proper welcome gift, Harper Brown had signed up for a reality challenge show called Extreme Crossing. Contestants would traverse harsh wilderness environments, and the first to reach the destination would win a million-dollar prize.
Harper had made up her mind: she would bring courage and money back to Grace — that little drool machine. When Grace grew up, she would know she had one hell of a grandmother!
What followed, however, was a development beyond anyone's wildest imagination. The very first day she was dropped into this rainforest by the production crew, the game descended.
The show had no scripts, no camera crews following the contestants. She had entered the jungle alone with only the essentials provided by production. Her sole link to the outside world was a satellite phone — but dialing it for help meant voluntarily forfeiting the competition.
Harper spent most of a day building up the nerve, confirming it wasn't her imagination and the world really had gone insane, before finally choosing to call.
But after the game's descent, the satellite phone was useless.
She had been abandoned in this already perilous rainforest, with nothing for company but an endless parade of mutated creatures.
This was the largest rainforest on Earth. Beneath the towering canopy, giant serpents slithered, venomous spiders lurked, brilliantly colorful poison dart frogs clung to oversized leaves, and leopards prowled on the hunt. The waterways teemed with giant catfish, arapaima, and piranhas, while black caimans lay in wait along the banks.
Although the production crew had selected a relatively safe, partially developed zone for the competition, once the game descended and the satellite phone and GPS failed, everything changed.
Drawing on her wilderness guide experience, she had tried to retrace her steps back to the starting point where the crew was based. But relentless attacks from mutated creatures forced her into constant flight, and she completely lost her bearings — lost in a jungle teeming with monsters.
If not for the Tyrant killing a Level 20 creature on the second day and unlocking the channel function, she might have lost the will to survive altogether.
The channel's existence told Harper that this despair wasn't hers alone. She hadn't been forsaken by the world.
Through the nearby channel, Harper was thrilled to discover another contestant.
Seven contestants had entered the competition, each starting from a different route, all heading for the same destination.
Hayden was one of them — a former special forces soldier who, after retiring, had developed a passion for the outdoors and become a wilderness expert. He had competed in the previous season of Extreme Crossing, which had been set in polar conditions, where he had narrowly lost to a skilled indigenous hunter.
Harper had watched that season. Hayden's performance had been impressive — rich outdoor experience combined with superhuman physical fitness. As one of only two humans in this rainforest, the gregarious Harper was desperate for a human companion.
A nearby channel with only two people was practically a private chat. Energized by sheer exhaustion-defying determination, Harper followed Hayden's descriptions and spent half a day tracking him down.
When she finally reached the lakeside, what remained of the human male — half a body, face unrecognizable — lay facedown on the bank. The submerged portion was being gnawed by a school of piranhas.
Fishing gear sat nearby. A tent was pitched not far off. Harper confirmed with great difficulty that this corpse belonged to Hayden, the special forces veteran.
All strength and willpower drained from her at once. Just as Harper was in the depths of despair, wondering if she would die the same horrible death at any moment, she spotted a name in the World Channel — Grace. She didn't know this person, hadn't even registered what the fleeting message said.
The name alone was enough to reignite her will to survive. She had promised to bring courage and prize money back to little Grace!
Clinging to that resolve, Harper Brown had endured the endless loneliness and danger, surviving until today.
Having killed the Serpent King today, Harper was feeling rather pleased with herself. She was the oldest contestant on Extreme Crossing — and quite possibly the oldest player in the top ten of the leaderboard.
She could die at any moment, or she could be the last one standing. Harper's mindset had shifted from initial despair to a numb equanimity. Life and death no longer mattered much. This anaconda wasn't venomous, and the meat was perfectly fresh — time to eat!
She had now reached Level 45 and obtained the item [Regenerative Snake Shed]... wait, what even was [Regenerative Snake Shed]?
Only then did Harper remember that when she killed the Serpent King and hit Level 45, the game had buzzed in her ear again and rattled off a bunch of stuff.
The game panel popped up. She hesitated for a moment, then chose to check her new reward first.
The moment she opened the item details, Harper Brown's eyes were drawn to the rating: "SS."
Over these days she had killed countless mutated creatures, waking each morning to nonstop combat. She had accumulated items of various sizes and tiers. But this was her first SS-tier item.
[Regenerative Snake Shed (SS)
Function: A sheet of snakeskin. Drape it over yourself and you will gain a second life.]
On the far side of the ocean, at almost the same moment, another person received an S-tier item.
Bai Shan stood on the rooftop. The flock at the horizon had flown far away, vanishing grandly into the night. The cheers reverberating through the human world had nothing to do with them.
Bai Shan didn't check her new item right away. After receiving Harper Brown's global broadcast, a question had formed in her mind.
The first global broadcast had been triggered when she became the first player to kill a Level 20 creature — the Strangler Banyan. The broadcast had specifically emphasized the word "first."
But this time, Harper Brown's broadcast for killing a Level 50 creature did not emphasize "first."
Bai Shan couldn't be certain what this discrepancy meant. Her kill of the Leader Eagle and Harper Brown's kill of the Serpent King must have happened almost simultaneously. The other woman might have been a step faster.
Being beaten by a step didn't bother Bai Shan much. [Regenerative Snake Shed] sounded like a fine item, but weighed against the trouble of having her identity exposed by a global broadcast, no item was tempting enough.
Better to let [Tyrant] remain a legend on the leaderboard. As Bai Shan, she was simply a somewhat powerful, somewhat willful player.
Cheng Yue and Qin Zhen had probably guessed her identity, but given their dispositions, neither would leak it.
There was still a long way to go before reaching her destination. Bai Shan didn't want too many people disrupting her journey. Perhaps, she thought, she really should keep a lower profile from now on?
A pale blue screen materialized before her. Between the freshly launched Message Board and the item tab, Bai Shan chose to check the item first.
[Lord's Crown (S)
Function: Authority is an invisible crown. Don the crown and you shall become the lord of a ten-square-kilometer domain. Within your territory, all players' trust toward you receives a 20% bonus. You also gain a 1,000-point protective shield. The shield's range cannot exceed ten square kilometers.]
Bai Shan read the description and exhaled in relief.
She finally had a proper defensive item!
*
Author's Note:
Pangya got an ear infection today — had to take her to the vet, which delayed things. I'll try to update earlier tomorrow...
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