Chapter 841 - 711: Honor

Weightlessness, falling.

The howling wind blew past his ears, and Li Cheng suddenly opened his eyes, facing the gloomy sky, and fell into the water.

The lake water was icy cold, and Li Cheng immediately activated the floating engine, rising up.

This was a circular artificial lake with a diameter of nine hundred meters, the lake bottom paved with bluestone bricks covered in green algae, average depth eight meters, showing no signs of fish.

Thump, thump.

More than twenty figures fell from the high sky, crashing into the water.

"Hmm?"

Besides Tang Juan and the other three who teleported with him, there were also experts from guilds like [Thousand Throats Beast], [Mechanical], and [Sword King Court] among the falling figures.

"Hello? Over here, over here."

A hoarse voice came from across the lake, with two flashlight beams shaking up and down. Li Cheng exchanged a glance with Tang Juan and the others and flew over.

On the shore, there was a temporarily assembled wooden platform, where stood a bipedal humanoid robot, with no head, only sensors atop its neck, and an LCD panel on its chest displaying a familiar human face.

"Good evening to all esteemed players, I am the United Nations Outer Space Affairs Office Extraterrestrial Interaction Specialist, Special Researcher at GOC Cross-Dimensional Institute, Honorary Earth Citizen, Dr. Noah’s... local deployment avatar."

With some basic movements, the robot waved its round hands and its optical sensors focused on Li Cheng, smiling: "Mr. Pi Fu, I knew you would successfully pass the first level.

In any case, please come closer, don’t get hit."

"Hit by what?"

Tang Juan instinctively asked, as a fierce wind sounded behind him, and above the lake surface, a nearly ten-meter-high Bai Jixiong suddenly tumbled out of the void, rolling into the lake, causing waves, then shrunk into a panda cub -

Looking at the ID floating above its head, it was evidently that deathly ally of the Red Driver, possessing the Druid transformation ability, [Bai Jixiong].

"Hit by that."

Dr. Noah’s avatar robot shrugged its shoulders, waved to indicate everyone to follow, "This is the second level of Four Realms Mountain, named [Netherworld Purgatory], it’s written in your quest log."

Sure enough, the collection crystal star in the quest log had been crossed out, replaced with [Reach the bottom of Netherworld Purgatory].

"The time flow rate in Netherworld Purgatory is slower compared to Broken Land. Therefore, the first batch of players arrived just about three hours earlier than you."

With Dr. Noah’s words, the players crossed the short slope, ahead revealing a supermassive sinkhole.

The sinkhole diameter exceeded twenty kilometers, surrounded by twisted, leafless black trees around its circumference, and in the center was an abyss, shrouded in clouds and mist, unfathomably deep.

"WTF..."

Tang Juan was dumbstruck, though the sinkhole itself was not terrifying, since the killing field entities were not short of such magnificent spectacles.

What shocked him was the gathering of over a thousand players around the sinkhole.

"8=2, DKP for equipment, need T and healers, must follow commands!"

"7=3, Level 25 and above, rolling group, no bosses!"

Many people were using loudspeakers, like in an MMO game recruiting for raid groups, loudly attracting people to join.

To recruit experts, they even built wooden platforms to stand higher, naturally forming a street.

"Wait, no, where did so many people come from?"

Maxwell quickly reacted, the Broken Land on the first level of Four Realms Mountain was already dangerous enough, with a painfully low margin of error.

The second level [Netherworld Purgatory], even the name sounded wrong,

like Tang Juan and Mei Wenyi, players who narrowly escaped, were supposed to exit immediately to preserve their lives.

Why were they so leisurely and relaxed, even calling friends over for a raid?

"It’s simple, because on this level, we can’t die."

Dr. Noah smiled faintly, lifted his round hand, and with fingers like small carrots, gripped a Gauss handgun and unhesitatingly pulled the trigger at his own chest.

Bang!

The Gauss bullet effortlessly pierced and ripped through chest armor, Dr. Noah’s robot body swayed and fell backward, collapsing in defeat.

This absurd act of "Order the army to commit suicide", frightened everyone, but in less than five seconds, the leaking oil machine body turned to flying ash.

"Ahhhhh——"

The shout with inherent Doppler effect came from behind.

Only to see the Noah robot chest wounds completely disappear, just like everyone before, falling from high above into the lake, performing a full resurrection.

"Yo, like this."

The Noah robot spat out a mouthful of lake water, using a jet pack to rejoin the crowd, explaining in a few words.

The surface area of [Netherworld Purgatory] is far smaller than the first level Broken Land, roughly only 150,000 square kilometers, surrounded and sealed by air walls at the edges and sky, impossible to traverse.

The sole exit is the Bottomless Abyss, containing a complex ecosystem, endless deadly traps, and a vast amount awaiting treasures to be discovered.

"...The structure of the purgatory sinkhole is a bottle shape, narrow at the top, wide at the bottom, its interior extremely vast, density of extraordinary creatures and materials higher than that of the killing field."

The Noah robot held out five fingers, "In the past three hours, at least ten teams have discovered epic quality item equipment. And that’s what’s already made public."

"What? Ten epics?!"

Mei Wenyi’s pupils widened dramatically, instantly forgetting expression management.

"Yes," Noah robot nodded, "not including the perfect quality items."

Something strange was certainly happening, Maxwell took a deep breath, "You know that behind Four Realms Mountain lie extraordinary existences like King Solomon and Emperor Shi from parallel worlds, right?"

"I just learned."

Dr. Noah nodded and both sides synchronized the intel.

"The currently known Four Realms Mountain is divided into four layers, the bottommost [Broken Land], above it is [Netherworld Purgatory], unknown further up, the topmost is Earth’s replica.

The entire Four Realms Mountain is a Non-Euclidean space aggregate, collaboratively built by various Level 40s from different branch worlds. Each layer’s time flow slows progressively.

On the top replica Earth level, our planet’s Level 40s, i.e., Michael, Hornheim, etc., are engaging in a standoff with the exotic realm’s Level 40s.

Conducting a battle deciding Earth’s fate."

"Wait," Tang Juan asked uncomprehendingly, "What is a Non-Euclidean space aggregate?"

Mei Wenyi also picked up a clue, "What is a branch world?"

Bai Jixiong raised his hand perplexed: "What is ’our planet’? Dr. Noah, aren’t you an alien?"

"Actually, I’ve already become an Earth person. I’ve even obtained Earth nationality."

As soon as this was brought up, Dr. Noah brightened up, his abdominal groove opened up, taking out a document printed with the GOC gilded emblem, actively opening it.

"This seems to have nothing at all."

Bai Jixiong blinked in confusion, the first page of the document only displayed name and issuance date, no birth date, birthplace, issuing authority, digital signature, or anything else.

"Flip forward."

Dr. Noah voluntarily flipped the page, the second page was unexpectedly a photo of him and Michael at the United Nations Headquarters doorway, holding a sign stating "Honorary Earth Citizen."

"See, I wasn’t lying to you. Who dares say I’m not an Earth person."

Noah cheerfully reclaimed the document, in some sense this photo was more useful than whatever presidential pardon from the United States, "And to answer the previous questions,

A Non-Euclidean space aggregate refers to a super-space structure with spatial-temporal stability, capable of crossing dimensions.

Similar to the high tower I created back in the day, though much technically superior than the high tower.

As for branch worlds, you should also have heard, more or less, of the World Tree theory, right?"