Ye Chuan handed the spirit essence to Lilith. As for the equipment, since they were all low-tier junk, they could be recycled at the point store. Every little bit counts, after all.
While Ye Chuan was checking the rewards in his inventory, he suddenly sensed something. A wisp of chaotic energy had returned to him.
Which meant...
The Skeleton Guard had been defeated?
"Huh? That fast?" Ye Chuan muttered in surprise. It seemed the Skeleton Guard had been overwhelmed by sheer numbers. Even though it was just a basic manifestation, it couldn’t hold its own against thousands of players ganging up on it.
The Skeleton Guard didn’t have any fancy attacks—just shield bashes and the occasional jump. Once the players figured out its patterns, they could easily dodge its moves.
"So this is what players are capable of? Not bad," Ye Chuan chuckled before settling back onto his throne.
Still, he had expected this outcome.
......
"Finally, it's dead!" Hu Tianyu watched as the Skeleton Guard collapsed into ashes and vanished. His sharp eyes immediately caught sight of an orange-glowing sword clattering onto the ground with a crisp metallic ring.
The moment that orange light flashed, it felt like everyone’s hearts stopped.
"Legendary-grade equipment!" The surrounding players surged forward like a tidal wave. A rogue, being the fastest, snatched the weapon and bolted.
"Kill him!"
In combat mode, newly acquired gear had a 99% chance of dropping upon death. The other players’ eyes burned with greed as they unleashed a barrage of attacks.
The rogue didn’t stand a chance. He was instantly obliterated, and the sword clattered back onto the ground.
The chaos escalated as players fought over the weapon, until one lucky player managed to grab it, die—and yet, it didn’t drop. Instead, they respawned back in town.
"Damn it! He got away with it!"
"Son of a—!"
A chorus of curses erupted. Hu Tianyu and his guildmates were the first to regain their composure, immediately contacting their fallen members.
"Keep an eye on that guy who got the sword. The second he steps out of the safe zone, slaughter him!"
After all, everyone respawned in the village, which was a safe zone. But no player could stay there forever—quests and leveling required venturing out to fight monsters.
Getting that weapon might not have been such a blessing after all.
"I wonder how those Skyhawk Guild bastards are doing. Did they manage to kill the hidden boss?" Hu Tianyu grumbled, but news soon reached him.
Skyhawk Guild had been instantly wiped out by the hidden boss?
"Wait, is that boss even stronger than the Skeleton Guard?" Hu Tianyu froze for a moment before noticing the ground trembling beneath his feet.
Then, right before everyone’s eyes, a new Skeleton Guard emerged.
"..."
A... respawn?
The players stood dumbfounded for a few seconds before noticing the faint orange glow radiating from the new Skeleton Guard.
"Does this mean killing it will drop another legendary-grade item?" Hu Tianyu’s heart pounded with excitement.
Even if it took massive resources to take it down, trading that effort for a legendary weapon seemed like a fair deal.
"Fall back and resupply first!"
Hu Tianyu wasn’t reckless enough to charge in again. After the last fight, everyone’s mana was drained. They needed to restock before another attempt.
The major guilds withdrew, while the solo players didn’t dare provoke the Skeleton Guard either. They lingered in the outer corridors, farming the respawning lesser skeletons in hopes of scoring some loot.
As time passed, the graveyard grew quieter.
"Buzz—"
The air rippled.
Ye Chuan teleported right in front of the Skeleton Guard, surveying the thousands of spirit essence scattered across the ground.
"Tsk tsk tsk, so many players... Thousands of spirit essence. This feels amazing."
Using a trash-tier spirit sword as bait in exchange for this haul—if Ye Chuan weren’t a skeleton right now, he’d be grinning ear to ear.
"All mine." With a wave of his hand, he absorbed every last bit of spirit essence.
Then, he glanced at the Skeleton Guard beside him. He had deliberately weakened today’s version—if it were too strong, players might lose interest in challenging it.
"But it looks like they’re enjoying themselves."
Ye Chuan weakened the Skeleton Guard a bit more, then pondered how to farm even more spirit essence.
"What if I could send my avatars outside the castle and camp the respawn point? That’d be perfect."
But that wasn’t realistic.
Ye Chuan couldn’t leave the castle himself. Even if his avatars slaughtered players at the respawn point, he wouldn’t be able to retrieve the dropped spirit essence.
"Ah well, this is good enough." After tweaking the Skeleton Guard’s stats, he returned to his throne.
"I wonder when the next wave of players will arrive~"
......
Over the next few days, Ye Chuan’s spirit sword bait netted him tens of thousands more spirit essence. The major guilds, meanwhile, happily farmed the Skeleton Guard for legendary gear, completely abandoning any thoughts of tackling the hidden boss.
But the guilds were puzzled. They noticed the Skeleton Guard’s stats fluctuated—sometimes it was fast, other times slow but tanky.
This inconsistency made it impossible to optimize their strategies, forcing them to expend enormous resources each time.
Still, a legendary weapon was worth the cost.
Word of the Naske Graveyard eventually reached the game’s administrators.
"What’s going on? Why are so many players dying in Norlan Village? Isn’t that a starter zone? Are guilds warring there?" Administrator A frowned.
"No, I checked the forums. Players are talking about farming some hidden boss’s Skeleton Guard for infinite legendary drops," Administrator B replied.
"Infinite drops? Check for bugs!" Administrator A ordered.
The game logs were pulled up, and the administrators fell silent when they saw a level 60+ hidden boss in a starter village.
"Wait, why is there a level 60+ boss in a beginner area?"
"Uh... let me ask the devs."
"Got a response. The devs say that boss is supposed to be level 20 and doesn’t drop legendary gear."
"Then it’s definitely a bug. Fix it."
"Right. Send an Arbiter to kill the boss and respawn a fresh one."
"..."
"Bad news."
"What now?"
"The Arbiter got killed by that boss."
"...What?"
ive and Ruthless] Before his transmigration, Ye Xuan was playing a game called "Severing Emotions to Attain the Dao." The game's core wasn't about leveling up by fighting monsters, but about conquering various "bad women" with wicked personalities and cold, fickle natures. There was only one method to conquer them: stay unwaveringly by their side, then die at a critical moment, driving them to madness after losing the protagonist. The higher their level of regret, the higher the player's score. To dominate the server, Ye Xuan conquered all the bad women. In the early stages, he showered them with boundless tenderness, only to choose to sacrifice himself for them later, making them weep bitterly and drown in regret. Among them were: Xia Lengyue, the unfaithful immortal wife who chased after powerful men and discarded her husband like trash. Ye Qingcheng, the Demonic Venerable of the Joyous Union Sect, who appeared pure and innocent but was, in reality, promiscuous. Wu Lingxiao, the Empress of the Great Xia Dynasty, who lusted after men and loved maintaining a harem. Bai Qiangu of the Endless Demonic Sect: a bloodthirsty mass murderer. However, when the protagonist transmigrated into the game world, he made a horrifying discovery. Eight hundred years had already passed. The bad women he had conquered had now each become deities and revered ancestors. Faced with the endless stream of toxic women coming for him, Ye Xuan could only rely on his god-tier acting skills to carve a path of survival through this world of treacherous women.
Cheng's father told him he was getting remarried—to a wealthy woman. Cao Cheng realized his time had finally come: he was about to become a second-generation rich kid. Sure, it might be a watered-down version, but hey, at least he'd have status now, right? The wealthy woman also had four daughters!! Which meant, starting today, Cao Cheng gained four stunning older sisters?? But that wasn't even the whole story... "My name is Cao Cheng—'Cheng' as in 'honest, smooth-talking gentleman'!"
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
