Liu Xuan chatted with Bell for a while and confirmed that the room was probably impossible to find. He sent the information to Zhang Meng, telling him to send someone to check the lower reaches of the Orchid River when he had time and see whether there was anything strange there.
After saying goodbye to Bell, Liu Xuan left Orenburg through the eastern gate and set out to complete the tasks on his list.
The objective of the first task was quite clear. In the wilderness east of Orenburg, there was a remnant force of more than three hundred soldiers.
They had once been the defenders of a city in the north. After that city fell, they had fled all the way to Orenburg and taken part in the defense of the city.
But in the end, Orenburg had fallen as well.
The remaining three hundred or so soldiers had escaped into the wilderness under the command of their general.
Normally, now that Orenburg had been reclaimed, one would expect the players who found them to receive a warm welcome. After all, these soldiers should have been happy to return.
And in fact, the ordinary soldiers did want to go back to the city.
However, their general seemed to have developed PTSD after suffering defeat several times. No matter what anyone said, he refused to return to the city.
Quite a few people had tried to complete this quest. Unlike the NPCs in the starting village, many of the survivor NPCs they had rescued previously would issue quests.
Most of those quests involved errands, finding people, or rebuilding homes. They were not particularly difficult.
The rewards, however, were excellent. They offered generous amounts of experience, and some NPCs would even give players the equipment they had used to survive in the wilderness.
Some would also teach survival and life skills.
For example, skills such as [Tracking Prey], [Archery Mastery], and [Trap Making].
That was why so many people wanted to bring these soldiers back. More than three hundred people meant there had to be plenty of quests.
But without exception, they had all failed. That was why this quest had ended up on Liu Xuan’s list.
Liu Xuan spent some time reaching the destination. Along the way, he killed a few monsters, allowing the [Destruction Aura] to spread once more.
Once activated, this thing basically required no further attention from him. As long as other people killed monsters, the aura would continue spreading.
The soldiers were currently hiding in a field of jagged rocks.
A red, coral-like plant grew in the cracks between the stones.
The conditions here were far worse than those faced by Hamovi’s rebel army. The players who had come to attempt the quest before had learned that the soldiers were hiding here precisely because the place was so desolate that monsters rarely discovered them.
Liu Xuan soon found the soldiers’ camp in the center of the rocky field.
It was really nothing more than a collection of tents propped up with scraps of cloth and wooden poles. Some of them even had drying racks outside, covered with the red plants.
It seemed that this was what the soldiers usually ate. Their lives were truly miserable.
When Liu Xuan arrived, many of the soldiers sprawled listlessly inside their tents glanced at him. At first, they raised their heads excitedly, but then they turned away in disappointment.
Liu Xuan immediately understood.
As expected, these soldiers all wanted to leave. But why were they still obeying that general?
If the man refused to go, they could simply leave him behind.
At that moment, a man who looked like an adjutant walked over and blocked Liu Xuan’s path. He regarded him with a complicated expression.
“More people have come again? Give it up. General Russo won’t go with you.”
Liu Xuan countered, “What about you?”
“Us?”
“Your general doesn’t want to leave, so why don’t you go on your own?” Liu Xuan swept his gaze across the ramshackle tents and the numb-looking soldiers inside them. Then he raised his voice. “Do you really want to spend the rest of your lives living in a place like this, chewing on wild grass every day? Orenburg may be in ruins right now, but at least it has food transported from the south. At least you’ll have a place to shelter from the wind and rain. Isn’t that a hundred times better than this?”
His words caused several soldiers to perk up.
That was right. If they could have a house to live in and food to eat, who would want to live like savages in a place like this?
But their expressions soon darkened again, and they slumped back down.
Liu Xuan noticed that many of them were looking toward a cave deep inside the camp.
Did General Russo live in there?
It seemed that everything still came down to him. No matter how much he tried to persuade the soldiers, it would be useless unless he could convince Russo.
Liu Xuan turned to the adjutant. “I’d like to meet General Russo.”
The adjutant shook his head. “The general doesn’t want to see anyone. Besides, he actually agreed to let us leave. We’re the ones who don’t want to go.”
The general had agreed to let the soldiers leave?
Liu Xuan was even more confused. “Why?”
“It’s nothing, just…”
The adjutant seemed unwilling to explain. At that moment, a hoarse voice came from inside the cave.
“Cough, cough… Someone else has come?”
Then came a series of tapping sounds, as if someone were striking the stone with a wooden stick again and again.
A figure emerged from the cave. He looked to be in his forties or fifties and stood well over six feet tall.
His beard was thick and poorly groomed.
Most striking of all, both of his arms and his left leg were missing.
His left leg had been replaced with a wooden prosthetic, but he was still unable to support his own weight. He could only brace his shoulder against the rock wall and inch his way outside, scraping along the stone.
This was Russo?
Liu Xuan glanced over the man’s attributes.
[General Russo (Seriously Injured)]
Level: 40
Attack: —
Health: 100,000
Armor: 100
Magic Resistance: 100
Tenacity: 70%
Skills: [Hardened Endurance: Reduces damage taken by 20% for 2 minutes. Cooldown: 1 minute.]
[War Cry: Unusable.]
[Whirlwind Slash: Unusable.]
[Through Hardship Comes Ease: Unusable.]
[Enraged Strike: Unusable.]
[Fearless Charge: Unusable.]
Russo’s level was extremely high, which matched his background as a soldier who had fled from a city in the north.
But because of his injuries—having lost both arms and one leg—his attributes had fallen into a miserable state.
Of his skills, only one remained usable. The others had all become unavailable.
Russo struggled out of the cave and looked at Liu Xuan.
“I’m willing to let them go with you.”
Liu Xuan shook his head. “But they don’t want to leave you.”
Russo was silent for a moment before his voice sank low.
“Perhaps it’s better that they don’t want to leave. Just look at the state I’m in. All of this was caused by those Destroyers. You may have temporarily reclaimed Orenburg, but they’ll return sooner or later. I don’t want to go through another defensive battle that is doomed to fail. Too many people have already died. I might as well spend the rest of my life here in the wilderness.”
Upon hearing this, Liu Xuan suddenly burst out laughing.
Russo frowned. “What are you laughing at?”
“You’re afraid Orenburg will fall again? What if I told you that we’ve already reclaimed Dawn City and Moonlight City in the north as well?”
“What? How is that possible?” Russo’s eyes widened.
Dawn City and Moonlight City were even farther north than the city they had first defended. If those places had already been reclaimed, then didn’t that mean their original city could be reclaimed too?!
The corners of Liu Xuan’s mouth lifted slightly.
“You have no idea how powerful we are. If I hadn’t been delayed by a few matters, I should be in the Royal City by now.”
“The royal city?!!”
e vast world of cultivation, where he becomes the master of the Heavenly Ruins Sacred Hall, a dying old man with barely a tenth of his former cultivation remaining. He is immediately confronted with a deadly crisis: his subordinates have rebelled, and his protectors are forcing him to abdicate. At the critical moment, the system descends from the heavens: [Ding! The host has been detected facing a life-or-death crisis. The system is now officially activated!] [As a gift, you have received the Supreme Beginner’s Pack and awakened the ultimate cheat: ten thousand years of pure cultivation essence every second!] Yin Tianjue: “Wait… ten thousand years of cultivation every second? That’s six hundred thousand years a minute, and in one day… I can’t even calculate it. Either way, I’m already invincible!” You’re a peerless prodigy rarely seen in ten thousand years? Sorry, I gain ten thousand years of cultivation every second. You’re an undying ancestor who has guarded a sacred land for countless ages? Sorry, I gain ten thousand years of cultivation every second. You’re the strongest chosen one, blessed with heaven-defying destiny? Sorry, I gain ten thousand years of cultivation every second. From this day forth, I have only one thing to say: “I gain ten thousand years of cultivation every second. Now, how exactly are you supposed to deal with that?”
s the Eldest Princess, renowned for her cold and aloof detachment, became the most docile of lambs, obeying his every command without question. But when the final move was played on the chessboard, as Gu Chenghan seized everything and ascended on the verge of apotheosis, that very Princess suddenly embraced him from behind, her tone carrying a dependence never heard before: "Wait... you haven't yet... commanded me to love you forever." Gu Chenghan froze abruptly. She... hadn't been hypnotized?! ... [The Eldest Princess's Diary] [When my soul was extracted, becoming the sole spectator outside my own shell] [At first, there was overwhelming fury, until I saw] [How he used my sword to effortlessly shatter my inescapable doom] [How he wielded my authority to eradicate fatal conspiracies I had never even detected] [Like a deity, he rescued me from the deep mire I was trapped in] [If not for those annoying vixens, he and I would be a match made in heaven] [I think I am ill, gravely ill] [My deity should belong to me alone] ... "Hypnosis? Oh, it succeeded, my dear Master." "Only this time, it's my turn to hypnotize you."
s + Rent Collection Wealth】 At the start, he inherited a rundown house in the urban village from his grandfather. The house had no tenants, but the moment he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, a self-proclaimed empress from the Tianxuan Continent arrived as his first tenant. Ye Chuan soon discovered that with every new tenant moving in, not only did he receive massive daily payments, but he also obtained unique items related to their backgrounds. 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Tiger Strength Pill—dramatically enhances physical power!】 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Deer Blood Pill—significantly boosts vitality!】 …… From that day on, all sorts of bizarre tenants began appearing in the house: the empress from Tianxuan Continent, an apocalyptic sorceress from the Magic Realm, a mysterious scientific girl who fell through a spacetime rift… Every single day, he received strange, powerful items and endless money. Then one day, he suddenly realized—he had become invincible. Enough, enough! Stop giving me more!
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
