Chapter 392: Limited-Time Event: Earth Core Parasite

The next day, Qi Suian was circulating his Twin Ghost Refining Technique. The Profound Yang Qi combined with the feast's energy, causing his power to subtly increase.

'It's a success.'

'Everything is ready; all that's missing is the final catalyst. Now I just have to wait for the Ghost Monster Soul Seed to develop into a true ghost monster.'

'I'm just missing the right opportunity.'

Qi Suian's gaze fell upon the ever-expanding swarm of alien cyanobacteria on the satellite map. This was his opportunity.

His divine technique was nearly complete; all he needed was this final piece of fuel.

"Smart Brain, let's move." Since Qi Suian was ready, he decided to act immediately.

However, before the Tai Sui God could act, the satellite network detected a massive energy reaction beginning to erupt from the planet's core.

At the same time, the Apocalypse Game's "New World Pass" limited-time event began.

[Limited-Time Event: Core Parasite]

[Objective: Survive for seven days]

[Reward: New World Pass]

'It seems the Apocalypse Game is unaware of the power of the array diagram the world's will granted me.'

'That's why it doesn't know the real crisis will arrive in two days. Instead, it has judged the birth of the Green Tide Lord to be the survivors' greatest threat.'

'From this perspective, the gap between the Apocalypse Game and the world will of the Ghost World is just immense.'

If the objective were to survive for two or three days, it would be understandable. But seven days meant the Apocalypse Game was completely blind to the array diagram's purpose.

'Unaware? What a joke. Qi Suian had already enslaved the survivors to work for him. How could it possibly be unaware?'

'It can only be that it doesn't understand it. Just like Qi Suian himself, it has no idea about the array diagram's principles or effects, which is why it's being ignored.'

'Fuck, this messes up my plan.'

"Smart Brain, go stabilize the situation first," Qi Suian said directly.

The limited-time event, with its reward of a New World Pass, naturally caused a massive uproar among the survivors.

After all, they could finally leave this damn Exhausted Planet. The survivors were ecstatic.

But then, the more observant among them realized there was a problem.

Their so-called Supreme Emperor, Qi Suian, was still alive. Even if they went to a new world, they would still be enslaved by him.

And since they were about to leave, there was no reason to keep working on this massive, nonsensical structure.

Once these thoughts took hold, chaos began to spread.

Qi Suian, of course, assessed the situation immediately.

This left him with only two choices. The first was to crush the rebellion and force the survivors to get back to work.

'If I kill ruthlessly enough, I'll eventually kill them into submission. And if I kill them all and there's still no one left to be afraid? Then I'll just have to build it myself.'

But the consequence of this would be missing the birth of the Green Tide Lord. The next time they met, even if it had been born prematurely, it would be incredibly powerful, not to mention having had time to recover.

The second option, naturally, was to ignore the rebellion and go after the Green Tide Lord, striking while it was still weak.

But "weak" was relative. Without his intercontinental missiles and Floating Cannons, defeating it would be no easy task for Qi Suian.

This delay could cause the entire array diagram project to fail at the final hurdle.

The survivors were on the verge of turning on him. Naturally, they would look for a way to make a statement. And what could be more suitable than destroying these strange buildings, the very symbols of their oppression?

To think he could still complete construction in seven days after that? It was completely unrealistic.

If that happened, Qi Suian would lose his chance to use the Green Tide Lord to attack the Apocalypse Game—his plan to "kill with a borrowed knife," to "let the wolf into the house."

Compared to dealing with the Green Tide Lord, Qi Suian placed more importance on striking the Apocalypse Game.

If the Green Tide Lord was gone, he could find other opportunities later. But this chance to land a devastating blow on the Apocalypse Game? This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

If he missed this, he might not get another.

'And what if the Apocalypse Game was actually destroyed in the process? Then wouldn't he be free?'

Ever since the Green Tide Lord had called him a "third-level life-form," he knew the universe containing the Exhausted Planet was vast.

'Maybe I could even inherit the Apocalypse Game's legacy.'

'Of course, it's also possible I'll get myself killed in the crossfire. But things have already come to this. When you have to gamble, you gamble. There's no point in being timid.'

'I'll just have to trust in my +10 Enhanced Protagonist Aura.'

The main reason was that he had no other choice. Unless he was willing to let his "deed of sale" remain in the Apocalypse Game's hands, in which case none of this mattered.

It was precisely because he was unwilling that he had resorted to this plan of "negotiating with a tiger for its hide."

[PLANNING IN PROGRESS...]

The Smart Brain responded instantly, and the Tai Sui God sprang into action.

All the Floating Cannons moved into formation. Various missiles from the strategic weapons system—everything short of the intercontinental ballistic missiles—were launched.

Wherever rebellion stirred, regardless of the reason or the number of people involved, the order was to kill first and ask questions later.

As far as Qi Suian and the Smart Brain were concerned, there were plenty of other survivors who wanted to live.

If this chaos wasn't suppressed in time, things would only get more troublesome.

Therefore, they couldn't afford to take it lightly.

In a way, this sudden turn of events was a greater threat and a more difficult challenge than the birth of the Green Tide Lord.

The Floating Cannons began firing pillar-like Dark Energy Beams from high orbit. With satellite guidance, accuracy was not a concern.

This was only the beginning. This method worked for areas with minor unrest, but for the regions where resistance cells had long been forming in secret, Qi Suian had to go in person.

The Smart Brain had long since designated a specific area where it had been gathering these resistance groups.

He hadn't chosen to kill them all because, despite their affiliations, they hadn't made a move and had continued to work diligently.

'As long as they don't actually do anything and keep working according to the rules, it would be a shame to kill off good labor.'

'And if they ever did decide to rise up, well, they were all conveniently gathered in one place for easy extermination.'

"The time has come! Everyone, with me—" a resistance leader shouted, raising his arm.

Before anyone could even voice their support, Qi Suian appeared like a phantom behind the man and snapped his neck.

The cheers that were about to erupt died in their throats. For a moment, there was dead silence.

They hadn't expected Qi Suian to arrive so quickly.

He had even come personally. He never showed himself on normal days unless there was a problem with the construction.

"Get back to work. Once this is finished, you can do whatever the hell you want. I won't stop you."

"But right now, if anyone dares to interfere with my plans, I will kill every last one of you," Qi Suian said, his voice laced with a deathly chill.

'Killing this entire group of laborers would be a considerable loss.'

'Otherwise, he wouldn't have bothered "killing the chicken to scare the monkeys" by only executing the leader.'

"He's just one man! We have..." someone shouted, unwilling to give up, trying to instigate the others from the safety of the crowd.

Before the man could even finish his sentence, Qi Suian plucked him from the crowd and tore his head clean off his shoulders. He was as dead as dead could be.

"You can stir up all the trouble you want," Qi Suian declared. "Just don't let it affect the work."

"If I find any more problems with the construction, none of you will live to see another day," Qi Suian warned bluntly.

After that show of force, the rest was simple.

They were all as silent as cicadas in winter. Not a single person dared to make a sound as they all lowered their heads.

It was pathetic, so many of them being threatened by a single man. But when that man possessed immense personal power and controlled all sorts of high-tech weaponry, it was a different story.

Qi Suian scanned the crowd and snapped, "What are you all standing around for? Get moving! Back to work!"

At his words, everyone scattered like birds and beasts.

After dealing with that area, Qi Suian immediately rushed to the next location to put down another rebellion.

Having no faction meant he had no one weighing him down, but it also meant he had to do everything himself.

It had its pros and cons.

It wasn't as if Qi Suian had never built a faction before. He had once been the Taiping Celestial King in the Spirit Root World.

But he later found it too troublesome and stuffed the entire faction into the Melting Furnace for fuel. That had been deeply satisfying.

'If he ever gets the chance, Qi Suian would definitely do it again. After all, that thing was incredibly useful.'

'It not only gathered wealth but also put everything to its best use.'

The Tai Sui God streaked across the land, pacifying one rebellious region after another.

As he moved, word of Qi Suian's rampage began to spread through the survivors' chat channels.

Out of fear, and due to the earlier missile strikes, many rebellious areas quickly fell back in line.

They obediently returned to work.

There were also those who would rather die than submit—quite a few, in fact. Seeing this, Qi Suian could only grant their wish.

Qi Suian didn't have much time to deal with the cleanup.

Those willing to work would continue as before.

As for those who weren't afraid of being killed, Qi Suian simply killed them.

This certainly meant a loss of labor, but not killing them would lead to even greater losses.

The entire process took nearly a day to complete. Only then was Qi Suian finished.

Throughout this process, he had also been keeping an eye on the Green Tide Lord's situation.

Just three hours earlier, the Green Tide Lord had been successfully born.

However, it was in a weakened state and didn't act immediately. Instead, it used the alien cyanobacteria swarm to occupy a region of the Exhausted Planet.

It then began using the alien cyanobacteria to further drain the remaining resources of the Exhausted Planet, hoping to quickly end the period of weakness caused by its premature birth.

By now, its period of weakness was almost over.

According to data projections, it would fully recover before Qi Suian could even reach it.

Still, premature was premature. It couldn't compare to a full-term gestation. The Green Tide Lord probably only had about a tenth of its full power.

Recovering the remaining nine-tenths would require not just time, but also an enormous amount of resources.

"Smart Brain, let's head for the Green Tide Lord."

Qi Suian didn't care what state it was in. He'd just blast it with a Ghost Energy Storm from his Floating Cannons first and see what happened.

'If things go as expected, it definitely won't let me off the hook. So I might as well strike first and gain the upper hand, rather than wait and suffer the consequences.'

'I'll catch it off guard and score a huge win for myself.'

[RECOMMENDATION: ADOPT A CONSERVATIVE STRATEGY]

[HIGH PROBABILITY THAT THE GREEN TIDE LORD WILL ATTACK THE ARRAY STRUCTURES]

Hearing the Smart Brain's words, Qi Suian was momentarily disappointed, but he quickly understood the reasoning.

'I've made such a huge commotion; it would be impossible to say I don't have a plan.'

'Take the Green Tide Lord, for example. No matter how you look at it, this whole setup seems aimed at it. So, to avoid being caught in my trap, it would be perfectly logical for it to destroy my arrangements before trying to kill me.'

"That's a possibility, but there's no need to worry too much. After all, I have Su Huayun."

"With such a massive aggro magnet, I don't have to worry about the Green Tide Lord getting distracted."