Desperate Evil Spirit

“Rebirth Device: Pal placed upon it can be sent into the Rebirth Array. A dreamlike machine...?”

Zhou Yue stared at the description of the Rebirth Device, his eyes full of confusion.

As their levels rose, they quickly discovered a problem: they never had enough Technology Points.

In the early stages, everyone simply unlocked whatever lit up. By the midgame, though, Technology Points became painfully scarce. At Zhong Yi’s suggestion, the four of them began dividing up the responsibility of unlocking new technologies.

After all, one-time items such as weapons and equipment only needed to be unlocked by a single person. This saved them a great many unnecessary Technology Points.

As the team’s foremost warrior, Zhou Yue could not even be bothered to study which new technologies had been unlocked. He simply waited for Zhong Yi’s arrangements, so this was naturally the first time he had heard of the Rebirth Device.

But as he looked at the enormous conveyor belt, he could not shake the feeling that this thing was bad news.

While Zhou Yue was inwardly wondering what exactly the Rebirth Device was for, Zhong Yi had already walked up to it and placed a level-one Abyss Dragon onto it.

In an instant, a pitch-black dragon lay obediently on the conveyor belt, moving steadily toward its far end.

It wore a serene smile on its face.

“Oh, it’s smiling... So it really is dreamlike?”

Zhou Yue raised an eyebrow, relieved. He had been worried it might be some inhumane contraption.

As the Abyss Dragon entered the pitch-black sealed chamber at the end of the belt, its body vanished in the next moment. A large golden Pal Soul and two pieces of plastic steel fell to the ground with a clatter.

“...So this is the kind of ‘rebirth’ you mean! No matter how I look at it, you just killed the Abyss Dragon, damn it!”

The corner of Zhou Yue’s mouth twitched violently.

“Isn’t this just a fully automated meat cleaver?!”

“Ah! Not so!”

Zhong Yi waved his hand with a solemn expression.

“Lao Zhou, didn’t you see how happy and relaxed the Abyss Dragon looked on that conveyor belt?”

“It was just born! Obviously, it had no idea that you, the Original Sage, were sending it off to be reincarnated!”

“Reincarnation is for its own good! It’s a low-level Pal born with three red traits. In its next life, it’ll definitely become a high-level Pal!”

“What the hell are low-level Pals and high-level Pals?! Lao Zhong, do you realize you sound like a cultist right now?!”

...

The Rebirth Device was, in fact, the Pal Disassembly Machine from the original game in his previous life.

At its core, it truly was no different from a meat cleaver. If anything, it was the meat cleaver’s ultimate pro edition, capable of automatically dismantling multiple Pals at once.

In Lu Ze’s previous life, plenty of players used the Pal Disassembly Machine, whereas very few used the meat cleaver.

The reason was simple: visual presentation.

The meat cleaver really did chop Pals to death in a bloody mess, which could make people physically uncomfortable.

But the Pals on the Pal Disassembly Machine all wore cheerful smiles before they departed, giving it an absurd sort of black humor.

Players would only feel that cold, lifeless Pals had turned into warm, useful materials. How heartwarming.

It was much like how players had always slaughtered Pals across the Pal continent for materials, yet their deaths merely seemed like they had been knocked unconscious. No one bothered to look too closely.

If those adorable Pals had really been turned into piles of bloody meat, there would probably have been half as many players farming materials.

Previously, Zhong Yi had exercised restraint when using the Rebirth Device.

But times had changed.

One piece of plastic steel required two cans of spirit oil and lengthy firing by a Fire-type Pal. The time cost was extremely high.

Breeding an Abyss Dragon, however, was remarkably easy—and could be fully mass-produced!

As a renowned expert in the strategy-guide community, Zhong Yi could hardly wait to share this great discovery, which would allow them to enjoy unlimited plastic steel, on the forums.

From that day onward, the moral standards of Palworld’s players sank to new depths.

And never recovered.

...

...

The main-server world of “Palworld.”

Within the sealed space at the deepest reaches of the World Tree.

The Withered Star Dragon, formed from the Corrupted Soul, lay weakly sprawled across the ground, exhaustion written all over its eyes.

For the first few days after being beaten into submission by the remnant spirit of the Heavenly Dao, the Corrupted Soul had lived quite comfortably.

After all, aside from the unfathomably powerful white-haired woman before it, and the black-haired cultivator who visited occasionally, no one in this world seemed capable of defeating it.

Whenever it had nothing better to do, it would invade a berserk Pal and launch hunting sprees against cultivators.

Moreover, its five senses were linked to all the Pals in this world.

It should be noted that the Pals in the Palworld redesigned by Lu Ze were far more ferocious than those in the original game.

Pals in high-level areas were extremely aggressive.

Many cultivators who had only just arrived died at the hands of ordinary Pals.

The more bloodthirsty the Pals became, the more exhilarated the Corrupted Soul felt through their shared senses!

Especially during those first few days, when even a Chikipi could kill someone—those days had been paradise for the Corrupted Soul!

But at some point...

An inexplicable weariness began to flood the sensations transmitted by the Pals.

Whenever the Corrupted Soul closed its eyes, it found itself mining in the mountains, tending crops in vegetable gardens, or stoking fires beside furnaces...

It was utterly exhausting!

It slept every day, yet no amount of sleep was ever enough.

Sometimes, it would even see the words “Heaven rewards diligence” written on a wall. Though it did not understand what those four characters meant, they filled it with a nearly crushing despair.

Once, it dreamed that it was exhausted and desperately wanted to soak in a hot spring for a while.

But the moment it sat down, a female cultivator dragged it out. She climbed in herself and claimed the very last available spot in the hot spring, enraging the Corrupted Soul so thoroughly that it woke up on the spot...

Being tired would have been bearable on its own.

But beginning yesterday, another bizarre shared sensation had started to come through.

It dreamed that, the moment it was born, it was placed on a moving strip of cloth and carried little by little toward a black door.

The moment it entered that black door, its consciousness vanished.

Then, upon opening its eyes again, it would find itself back on that conveyor belt.

Again and again. Over and over. An endless cycle...

The Corrupted Soul despaired.

The Corrupted Soul wanted to cry.

During the rare moments when it regained a little clarity, all the violence and murderous intent had vanished from its eyes, leaving behind only boundless grievance.

It looked toward the remnant spirit of the Heavenly Dao.

The latter crooked a finger at it.

“Come. As it happens, I’m itching for a fight.”

“???”

...

...

The seventh day after “Palworld” went online.

Beast Taming Sect, Beast God Hall.

“Young Friend Lu truly has the gift of foresight! The resentment of that Corrupted Soul is weakening... How did you do it?!”

He Muye was both shocked and delighted, so excited that his words came out in a rush.

He had originally believed that getting the Corrupted Soul to redirect its resentment would already be the limit.

Who could have imagined that Lu Ze’s casual remark—that the resentment might disappear in a few days—would come true so quickly?

“No, no, no. This is the work of all the players... no, all the cultivators.”

Lu Ze waved his hands repeatedly.

Just thinking about how the Corrupted Soul was linked to every Pal in the world, while hundreds of thousands of cultivators had over a million Pals working like slaves around the clock—it had to be an exquisite experience.

Resentment?

What resentment?

Compared to working shifts around the clock as a slave, what did those trivial fights and killings from ancient times even amount to?

Lu Ze even suspected that if he released the Corrupted Soul again in a few days, once the thing learned it would no longer have to toil away like a slave or be torn to pieces, it might just start barking “woof woof” on the spot...