Chapter 934: Absolute Slaying, Death to Those Who Are Hit

A short while later.

Bang!

The massive body of the Earth Fiend Demonic Ape collapsed with a boom, exploding into a floor full of colorful equipment and items. Qi Yuan looked at the items scattered before him, but his heart remained calm.

After that battle, which wasn't particularly hearty or dripping with sweat, he became even more aware of the oddities of this world.

Compared to other players, he didn't seem to need to level up to easily slay a powerful BOSS. He relied solely on a certain instinct of this body, as if things were simply meant to be this way.

Even weirder was that he, this so-called "player," couldn't even log off or quit…

If one viewed the world as a game, then this game was far too simple and boring; it was as if he had turned on a cheat engine.

Although the experience points Qi Yuan had accumulated were enough to level him up eight or ten times, the purpose of leveling up was to become stronger. He was already very strong without leveling up, so there seemed to be no necessity for it.

Had he not received a warning beforehand, Qi Yuan might have tried to level up. But now, he naturally wouldn't be so reckless as to click the level-up button.

Because of this, the sense of isolation from his surroundings grew stronger. It felt like an outsider intruding into an illusion meticulously woven by someone else…

While Qi Yuan was lost in thought, Wang Dali's extremely excited voice reached his ears:

"As expected of the Boss! Killing the Earth Fiend Demonic Ape in a single strike—truly formidable!"

"Haha, it even dropped a purple piece of equipment! We're rich now!"

Wang Dali's intensely excited voice instantly interrupted Qi Yuan's train of thought. He took a deep breath and went over to pick up the purple ring the other had mentioned.

"star brilliance ring (Legendary) +1, Rank Requirement: 8. When equipped: Attack +20, Critical Rate +10%, Critical Damage +25%. Special Effect: 2% chance to trigger a Lethal Strike. Once triggered, it performs an Absolute Slaying on the target; death is certain for those hit."

Looking at the purple ring in his hand, Qi Yuan raised an eyebrow and tried to slide it onto his finger. However, no matter how he tried, he couldn't put the ring on, as if a barrier had been placed over it.

"Current player Rank is insufficient. Please level up before equipping."

After receiving the notification, Qi Yuan immediately gave up on the idea of wearing the ring and instead tucked the star brilliance ring into his robes.

He didn't plan on leveling up right now, so this equipment was temporarily useless. He chose to keep it only because he was curious about its special effect and planned to study it when he had time.

As for the junk on the ground, he had no interest in it at all and let Wang Dali collect it. This made his newly recruited lackey so excited he nearly knelt on the spot to recognize him as his foster father.

Just as Qi Yuan was preparing to set out for the next BOSS, his eyes suddenly widened, and a look of surprise appeared on his face.

Not far away, a leaf knocked down by the aftershocks of the previous battle did not fall to the ground. Instead, it kept spinning in place like a never-ending top.

Seeing this scene that defied the laws of physics, Qi Yuan walked quickly to the leaf. Before he could even touch it, the leaf shattered with a pop, turning into countless spots of light and vanishing.

"A BUG appeared. It seems the programmers at Unreal Company aren't gods either. But compared to other games, this game is an existence that simply crushes the competition…"

To the side, Wang Dali curled his lip, seemingly unsurprised by such a scene.

After the previous explanations, Qi Yuan could now understand what the word 'BUG' meant, but he didn't believe a mere BUG could explain all the current problems.

Although he had a theory in mind, he didn't dwell on it too much. Instead, he prepared to speed-run the game in the shortest time possible, until he encountered a BOSS he couldn't defeat…

Following that, Qi Yuan led Wang Dali on a rampage, slaying one BOSS after another. In just three or four hours, he had accumulated over ten purple items, including a rare-grade Dark-gold Longsword.

In contrast, as the difficulty of the BOSSes increased—some even coming with various disgusting rule restrictions—Qi Yuan found it harder and harder to fight. He could no longer easily one-shot them like he did at the beginning.

Eventually, it took him a full half-hour of grinding to wear down a BOSS to its death.

Despite obtaining many pieces of equipment, Qi Yuan couldn't use them due to Rank restrictions—until the previous BOSS dropped a special scroll.

"Unrestricted Scroll +1: Upon using this scroll, you can remove the usage Rank requirement of any item."

After thinking for a moment, he didn't consume the scroll on the rare longsword but instead fed it to the star brilliance ring.

"Player has equipped star brilliance ring: Attack +20, Critical Rate +10%, Critical Damage +25%, gained 2% Slaying effect."

Looking at the message before him, Qi Yuan's eyes narrowed slightly, and a strange thought suddenly surged in his mind:

He didn't have a limit on equipping items; as long as his fingers could fit them, he could equip multiple rings.

If he wore fifty star brilliance rings at the same time, wouldn't he be able to raise the Slaying effect to 100%?

When that time came, even the supposedly invincible final BOSS, the Chaos Demon God, would be killed by him in a single strike, right?

Thinking of this, under Wang Dali's incredibly astonished gaze, he went back to solo-farm the BOSS that dropped the Unrestricted Scroll.

At the same time, the story of a Rank 1 newbie using cheats to kill gods and sweep through all kinds of dungeons gradually began to spread among the players, attracting quite a bit of attention.

Of course, the truly high-level players in the game were almost all gathered on the Immortal Realm map. Because it hadn't been long, Qi Yuan's reputation as a cheater only circulated among the noob players in the mortal realm and hadn't reached the Immortal Realm yet.

…

After an unknown amount of time, Qi Yuan finally farmed another Unrestricted Scroll. Immediately after, the scene before him blurred, and he was teleported out of the dungeon.

Besides the scroll, he also needed to go back to the Earth Fiend Demonic Ape in the Beginner Village to farm another star brilliance ring to completely confirm his previous hypothesis.

After exiting the dungeon, before he could look for Wang Dali, he saw a group of high-level players with shimmering treasures and blinding equipment surrounding him aggressively.

"So you're that newbie who's openly cheating…"

The leading player raised his chin with disdain, about to say something more, but in the next instant, he froze in place, his expression as shocked as if he had seen a ghost.

"Yuan Wu, you… you… didn't you quit the game? Why did you suddenly come back?"

As he spoke, he nodded to himself and said with absolute certainty:

"Yuan Wu, I knew all along you were a cheater. Now you've finally let the cat out of the bag, haven't you?"

Qi Yuan frowned and asked with some surprise:

"You know me?"

The other man looked Qi Yuan up and down with a face full of suspicion and uncertainty, his expression tinged with a hint of wariness as he said in a heavy voice:

"The appearance and features in this game are automatically generated through facial scanning. Players can only make minor adjustments of no more than 20%. Unless you could find someone in reality who looks exactly like Yuan Wu to take his place, it's impossible to impersonate that man."

"More importantly, that guy didn't have a name or ID at the start just like you. The name [Yuan Wu Immortal Lord] was modified using a Name Change Scroll!"

Qi Yuan looked surprised and was momentarily dazed.

Huh?

I am that Heaven and Earth Society Grand Helmsman who was once brutally tormented by the final BOSS?