Chapter 166 The Shaking Road to Heaven on the Bridge of Broken Souls.
[File No. 9502]:
※The file has been updated to the latest version.
Dungeon Name: Rainbow Bridge
The instance was formerly known as: Set sail, Giant Harbor!
Dungeon Difficulty: ?
Dungeon opening count: 8
Highest popularity score for the instance: 99/100
Previous host reviews: S
...
Dungeon type: Maze
Main Quest: ... [Main Quest 1 (Final Quest): Leave the Maze]
Side quests: ...
Hidden Boss: [To be unlocked]
Recommended number of players: 8
...
Xue Chao knew immediately upon seeing the file number that this was a conspiracy within the game.
To prevent players from having an experience advantage from a previous season, they will not be matched with the same instance again.
Dungeon number 9502 is Xue Chao's first dungeon in this life. The game released it under the guise of an "urgent mission" to lure him in.
Even if he knows it's a trap when the god of joy loses control and goes berserk, he will still grit his teeth and accept it.
As soon as Xue Chao entered the instance, his mind was violently agitated, as if he were being boiled in a pot of boiling water.
After calming down a bit, his gaze darkened again.
The starting point is an island, the last new world to be built in Giant Harbor. Beyond the island lies an endless sea of blood, with shipwrecks and the remains of players from previous seasons scattered everywhere.
Half of the giant ship is stuck in the land, pointing diagonally at the starry sky, like a unique high-rise building on the island.
The prows of the eight wrecked ships rise up into the sky, forming a staircase made of colorful gemstones that extends towards the starry sky, branching out more and more at different angles, creating a suspended labyrinth.
Xue Chao had just left the library when he felt a strong sense of déjà vu.
In Norse mythology, the body of the progenitor giant Ymir was filled into the void of the Ginnunga Canal, and thus a world of life and order came into being.
The giant's torso became the earth, where mankind lived, which became Midgard. The giant's skull was placed against the sky, and the gods established their kingdom of Asgard in the sunlit land.
The Rainbow Bridge connects the Kingdom of God with the human world, meaning "the shaky road to heaven".
The initial island refers to Midgard, the starry sky is Asgard, and the intricate labyrinth connecting the two is the Rainbow Bridge, the main stage of the dungeon.
Xue Chao was a host who was temporarily assigned to the position. He could view the live replay of the prediction camera positions and understand the situation of the instance.
Mazes and escape rooms are similar; instance number 142857 can be used as a reference, but there are still differences.
Dungeon number 142857, together with the initial world, has a total of 4 intersecting worlds. Although the maze appears complex, the paths players take are completely independent. It consists of 8 small mazes that are not interconnected.
The entrances to the maze are scattered on the wrecked ships of the island, and the end of the maze is scattered in the starry sky.
Each maze has a different style, built from the player's own experiences and drawn from their mental world, including memories, desires, and imagination. For example, Ruoshui's ace maze, the maze of the short-haired woman, is filled with gunfire, as she is a mercenary.
The labyrinth is a manifestation of their inner demons, a resurrection of painful memories, an awakening of trauma, and the removal of the thorns that have been intentionally or unintentionally suppressed in their consciousness.
Once inside the maze, the entrance is closed to them. To leave the maze, they can only move forward and upward to reach the exit.
For the same task, players only need to navigate their own mazes; there is no scheming or plotting against each other, nor is there any opportunity to exchange information or cooperate.
The sole host is in the dilapidated cabin of the island, in the central control room of the starting point, monitoring the eight mazes.
Compared to the old school days, this feels more like a proper 1v1 game, with 8 players each playing their own game.
In the live replay, the starry sky was vast, but now it was obscured by the cold mountain mist, appearing and disappearing intermittently. Red light flashed through the clouds, like bloodstains cracking the sky, and a mournful dragon's roar pierced the entire space.
The room connection was lost, and the popularity value was stuck at 89 points. This is probably why Jiang Ming left the Xue Chao instance so urgently.
Popularity points are equivalent to the contamination level of the instance. When the level reaches 100, the instance space is assimilated into the infinite world.
The host's betting privilege: if the prediction camera is in the first 1/3, they receive 5 popularity points, which are evenly distributed among the number of prediction cameras. If the first place is among the prediction cameras, they receive an additional 5 popularity points, and vice versa.
If you correctly predict the first place, and the other prediction team members are not in the bottom third, you are guaranteed at least 5 popularity points. If all the players who made the predictions perform well, 10 points are practically guaranteed.
This dungeon is of unknown origin, but more than half of the top ten players on the leaderboard have come, plus Huang Haitao, it's practically a streamlined, high-spec team from Xibei Mountain.
The host, who was initially ranked second, is now in first place.
The former number one player is in the same situation as Bai Lu; after the last dungeon settlement, they disappeared from the leaderboard. I wonder which dungeon they were corrupted into a boss in.
The only predicted position is held by Lü Lianshan, who is ranked the highest and will likely be number one.
Once the popularity value reaches 90 points, regardless of whether the players are alive or dead, the popularity value will automatically reach its maximum value as soon as the dungeon ends, and the dungeon will be completely corrupted.
For the sake of game balance, it's impossible for a dungeon to be full of expert players. If that happens, how can the other rooms compete?
This is the game deliberately interfering, intentionally matching them together.
No wonder Xue Chao's room's popularity rating isn't rising as fast as before, and its ranking has been consistently stuck in second place.
It wasn't until he disappeared and Jiang Ming became the acting host that the magical characteristics of the dungeon were revealed. Because the players didn't interact, the audience was scattered, and the players got lost in the latter half of the maze, the dungeon was in a stalemate, and his room ranking finally surpassed the first place.
Zhuo Yi was in his own instance, and Han Zheng guessed the truth of the game himself. The stubborn instance number 142857... The two bosses, Sister and Jiang Ming, who were not completely corrupted, were even more of a major concern.
The neighboring instance has the same setup, and with him added to the mix, it's not just about silencing them; the intervening consciousness is going to wipe out their entire generation.
Therefore, Jiang Ming made a big fuss to grab the popularity of this instance, and then quickly came to cause trouble after Xue Chao entered the library.
Xue Chao then thought of Xibei Mountain.
He gained 10 points in the first dungeon, which brought him to exactly 99 points. In the second dungeon, without the prediction bonus, he didn't even reach 90 points, thus escaping disaster.
Given the configuration and situation of the fourth instance, it's difficult for the popularity value to be insufficient; the instance has been completely corrupted.
It was also intentional on the part of the game that even if the two ace hosts failed to catch Li Changying and Boss Tang, the "gap consciousness" could freely invade its new territory and catch them effortlessly.
During that guild competition, their popularity score was stuck at 88 points. They eventually left Nightingale Mountain. At that time, Nightingale Mountain had not yet been completely covered by Joy and Sorrow Mountain, so it was still considered part of the Nightingale Mountain instance. The predicted location was set by Marco Polo as the Nightingale Mountain player.
However, since players from both instances are ranked together, the player who experienced more twists and turns, Xue Chao, naturally ranks higher, so the predicted player position doesn't add any points.
Jiang Ming said that he naturally had all the good luck in the tavern, so his great success in the end was due to the blessings of his companions.
But how could the most powerful evil god not have a final, desperate gamble?
Jiang Ming deliberately let him go, keeping his popularity at 99 points, in order to prevent Joy and Sorrow Mountain from being polluted.
Guilds were originally heavily polluted spaces that had fallen into the infinite world. After being polluted a few more times, they would become part of the infinite world, which is empty land and wasteland. Guilds were built in these places.
According to Holder's intelligence, Tao Yuanyuan, the former second-ranked host, likes to stay hidden from beginning to end, never trying to make her presence known to players or viewers, and never deliberately creating topics, unlike some hosts who use their early advantages to sow discord among players and increase their popularity.
He was very afraid of dying and didn't want to face players with superpowers, so he hid in the shadows and tried his best to help players complete the main quest. It would be best if he could finish at 60 points. After 60 points, he would play dead and have nothing to do with the dungeon or what happened to the players afterward.
After finishing his work, he returned to the infinite world, where he was completely out of reach; his main goal was simply to survive.
The strategy was very successful. He was able to reach the top with an average popularity score of 60 points, all thanks to his longevity and high score.
But it also demonstrates his ability; controlling the score is not easy, and his grasp of the overall situation is superb.
He has a good reputation among lower and middle-level players, and the host pushes him to complete the mission. However, high-level players and ambitious players don't like him because he has no room to perform. Compared to "the worst of the evil gods", they named him "King of Rats".
This person is most afraid of Holder. In the infinite world, he can hide in the company, where players cannot reach him. His colleagues do not have any superpowers, so he gets stuck at 60 points and the battle ends. However, he cannot resist Holder's divine weapon, which has no restrictions, making him suffer greatly.
Once he was matched with a player with a serious problem, he avoided them even more, and only cared about keeping his popularity score at 40 points.
This instance features an independent maze with limited room for maneuver, and is dominated by expert players, causing the popularity to soar from the start. In addition, there's a persistent ace player with debuffs at their maximum.
At the start of the game, Tao Yuanyuan pretended to be dead and has not shown any trace so far. For example, there is no host for the dungeon.
It's hard to find anything aimlessly, but the new ability of the S-class item, the Third Eye, comes in handy. Xue Chao puts on the item and immediately enters the other world, where the difference in color depth is extremely large, like a thermal image.
But he adapted well. Marco Polo had shown him what to do, but Marco only intended to cause trouble. The colors changed randomly, but the depth of the third eye was logical.
A chilling aura of despair enveloped the sky and the earth, amplifying all emotions and pushing all spiritual desires to their peak.
Extreme emotions materialize, like being in a chaotic mental world, where red and white lines dance wildly like tentacles, crashing into the labyrinth.
The evil god hidden in the clouds is the most vividly colored, so vivid it's almost murky. The colors intensify as you ascend through the maze.
There is only one vacuum.
Xue Chao's third eye swept across the sea, where the host was hiding and using an emotion suppressor, which he had used before, so he was familiar with it.
High-level players are wary of the most powerful evil god, but few know the true abilities of the evil god. The host who has survived the longest is obviously someone who knows the truth.
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