Chapter 138: The Long Journey

Once this detailed announcement was released, the entire Blue Star internet didn't erupt in celebration like it usually did for new version updates; instead, it fell into a long, eerie silence.

All the veteran players who had fought their way from France at the game's launch all the way to Babylonia, looking at the passionate, epic trailers in the announcement and the words "The mastermind behind the incineration of human history," felt an indescribable mix of emotions welling up in their hearts.

It was a blend of remembrance for those who had passed, reflection on the long journey, and a sense of loss at the impending finale.

However, as they read line by line and saw the unprecedented "server-wide raid" and the phrase "Go and reclaim the future that belongs to humanity," this complex melancholy instantly ignited and fissioned within their chests, eventually transforming into a tangible, boiling fighting spirit!

"Finally... are we going to face that guy head-on?"

Inside his luxury gaming pod, PD uncharacteristically dropped his usual grinning, joking facade.

He silently opened his Servant formation interface.

Looking at those faces shimmering with golden light, the ones that had accompanied him through countless desperate situations over the past half-year:

Mash, the junior who reached out to him in the burning ruins; Bedivere, who sacrificed his soul to cleave the White City; Gilgamesh, who died from overwork on the throne but fought to the very last moment as a Heroic Spirit; and Ereshkigal, the golden-haired goddess who smiled as she faded away in the Underworld...

"Before I knew it, so many people have sacrificed themselves, and we've come such a long way."

PD took a deep breath, his eyes slightly stinging.

"Brothers, I won't lie to you."

PD spoke to the camera in the live stream, his voice slightly low, "I've played games for so many years and seen plenty of storms. But this is the first time, before fighting a final boss, that I've felt such a heavy weight on my shoulders..."

Meanwhile, in a rental apartment late at night, Lin Feng, who had just finished overtime, sat quietly in front of his VR headset.

As a free-to-play player who didn't spend much money, he didn't have a luxurious roster with every character like PD. But looking at Arash in his starting lineup—a battle-hardened veteran with maxed-out bond levels—a tragic sense of heroism welled up in his heart as well.

"The sea of fire in Fuyuki, the evil dragon of France, the locked Final Singularity, the desperate walls of Camelot, the tragic song of the Absolute Demonic Beast Front..."

Lin Feng muttered to himself, as if counting medals carved onto his soul, "Although I'm too poor to have many five-stars, this journey is a miracle we paved with our lives."

He reached out and gently wiped the scarred cross-shield of Mash on the virtual interface.

"Guys, this is the final tough battle. Let's drag that mastermind sitting at the end of time off the throne!"

However, this heavy sense of epicness lasted for less than a minute before Lin Feng's gaze was locked onto the small print at the bottom of the announcement.

"Suppressing the Demon God Pillar Barbatos has a high probability of dropping Hearts of the Foreign God and Forbidden Pages?!"

Lin Feng swallowed hard, his previously deep and tragic eyes instantly flashing with the green glint of a hungry wolf.

As a frugal free-to-play player, he usually couldn't bear to spend currency to replenish stamina, and his inventory of Hearts and Pages was already bottoming out.

A while ago, to prepare for the Pruning Protocol, he had maxed out the skills of several low-star gods of war, and he had been grinding daily free quests to the point of vomiting blood.

"Brothers..." Lin Feng typed frantically in the FGO player exchange group of several hundred people he had just joined, his fingers trembling with excitement.

"Plot is plot, but we have to grind Barbatos to death when the server opens tomorrow, okay! Nobody steal my Hearts!"

Meanwhile, in the live stream of popular female streamer Belle, the atmosphere was a mix of sentimentality and excitement.

"Wuwuwu... Old Thief Kirito's writing is too touching! As long as you've left footprints, you aren't fighting alone..."

Belle wiped away her tears while looking at the instructions in the announcement, completely moved.

"Although I don't know what mechanism Old Thief Kirito means by 'you will never fight alone,' maybe the system will give some commemorative Buff based on our previous clear records..."

"But as soon as I see this sentence, and think of Sister Siduri, Anna, and Ereshkigal, the way they smiled, I can't help but want to cry!"

Belle waved her fist forcefully, her eyes red, yet filled with unprecedented determination: "I don't care how scary that Demon God King is! For everyone's sake, I'm going to charge to the front tomorrow, completely destroy this damn Grand Temple of Time that incinerated human history, and avenge them!"

On the other side, White Night, who had just become a legend in the Pruning Protocol and stolen the spotlight, was sitting in front of a holographic screen, deconstructing the groundbreaking "new event gameplay" in the announcement word by word.

"Unified Spirit Origin... server-wide shared health bar... 20-Anna multi-line progression..."

White Night's slender fingers tapped gently on the desktop. Unlike most players immersed in tragic emotions, as a technical streamer, his focus was more on the [gameplay] aspect.

"Old Thief Kirito specifically emphasized the 'real-time combat linkage' between positions; if one place fails, the whole team collapses..."

White Night sat up straight, his voice filled with irrepressible excitement, "Brothers, do you get it? This means we need to perform five-line micro-management tower defense simultaneously!"

"Some teams are responsible for extreme pressure resistance, some for mechanic puzzles, and some for focused fire and execution!"

"This is no longer single-player turn planning; this is an unprecedented [multi-threaded team tower defense Raid]!"

White Night's brain was spinning rapidly, and brand-new tactical systems were forming in his mind, "I suggest everyone immediately max out all the low-star utility cards you don't usually use, especially those unpopular Servants with map-wide support, environmental purification, and powerful crowd control! In this real war, individual stats are insignificant; what we need are twenty tactical gears that can mesh perfectly!"

Across all major gaming forums, the plot theorists, meta-gamers, and lore enthusiasts who usually bickered with each other... had now reached an unprecedented and astonishing unity.

Countless people spontaneously formed "Punitive Legions" on the forums, sharing the turn-planning experiences and effective lineups they had figured out during the Pruning Protocol.

"Everyone! My max-investment, max-NP Jeanne dArc Alter and Merlin are already up on the support list! Newbies, feel free to borrow them! Don't be afraid of having low damage; as long as you can chip away a bit of the Demon God Pillar's HP, you're contributing to all of humanity!"

"F2P player reporting in! I don't have any five-star main DPS, but I have max-level taunt tanks and low-star supports! I guarantee I'll hold the blue gate in the 20-Anna raid, not letting a single mob leak even if I die, creating an output environment for the big-shot main DPS borrowed from others!"

"Charge, charge, charge! It's the final battle! Let that bastard who incinerated human history see what happens when you make us angry!"

For players across the network, this 24-hour countdown felt as long as a century.

On the eve of this impending storm, no one knew how massive the health bar of this server-wide Raid was, nor did anyone know what kind of despair-inducing pressure the true Demon God King possessed.

They only knew that when the gates of the Grand Temple of Time opened, the final rebellion launched by the human species against the King of Mages would officially begin.

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