Chapter Seventy-Seven: The Vengeance of Gagaro

...Chatting with a black screen—this sort of thing is truly disheartening for small-time streamers who barely get a handful of comments even when they go live. Of course, this had nothing to do with Old Liao. He carefully reviewed the information in the streaming room, scrutinizing each comment, determined not to overlook any valuable detail.

“Top of the gift leaderboard—damn, it worked!” Old Liao exhaled in relief, a smile breaking across his face. This streamer must have some connection with the one called Nightfall Radiance, otherwise why would she follow only this channel and send so many gifts?

He couldn’t help but grumble inwardly about this player named “Simpleton,” but hurriedly tried to private message Huang Yunshuo. Unfortunately, due to previous harassment, Huang Yunshuo had disabled private messages; to add him as a friend now required a payment of one hundred million credits.

“How can I contact the streamer?” Old Liao was left with no choice but to ask in the chat.

“Just search his name on the media platform—the pinned first channel is his,” someone replied.

Old Liao was puzzled. Wasn’t there already a stream right here?

After searching for Huang Yunshuo’s stream on the media platform, he entered and found it was still a black screen. However, this chatroom had even more participants than the previous one, with messages flying by rapidly, despite only having just over forty thousand followers—less than one-sixth of the other room’s numbers.

“When is the streamer going live?” Old Liao quickly asked, feeling pressed for time due to his busy guild affairs and unable to afford to waste much of it.

“Probably in forty or fifty minutes. What’s the rush? Just wait,” came the curt reply.

“Go do your quests, you brat. Do you have Meteor and Stardust?” another viewer asked.

“Of course I do,” Old Liao responded, bewildered yet slightly annoyed at being insulted. Still, he wasn’t angry, though he began to sense that the atmosphere in these two chatrooms was somewhat unusual.

“Kid, we’re talking about Meteor and Stardust from the media platform, not that second-rate stuff from Starstream!” someone shot back.

Old Liao’s face darkened as he realized both chatroom channels were abuzz, discussing rare gifts during the black screen. His curiosity piqued, he started checking out the Meteor and Stardust quests in his personal center.

Feeling refreshed, he logged in again.

The moment Huang Yunshuo entered the game, he sensed something was off. The interface had a few new features, and only a little over two hundred players remained in the mine. For some reason, many had left, and fewer than a hundred were still mining, engrossed in an intense discussion.

“What are you all talking about?” Huang Yunshuo asked curiously, taking out his pickaxe.

“There was a built-in version upgrade. It just finished!” a player replied eagerly.

Fox Soft chuckled, “Yeah, a bunch of new features popped up. Everyone was so distracted they stopped mining, and a lot of folks left.”

“Let me take a look,” Huang Yunshuo thought to himself, quickly finding and opening the update notes.

Version 0.0.2—two updates in as many days since launch? That’s fast.

“The global shop finally opened! That’s huge news,” he exclaimed, elated. Gathering materials for his alloy armor and thruster on his own would have taken who-knows-how-long, but now he could purchase them from players across the server, making things so much easier.

“The Brotherhood—that’s probably a small guild system. The forums must be flooded with players advertising right now. Time-Space Odyssey? No idea, but I have a hunch it might be some kind of teleportation item,” he mused.

Amidst all this, what caught Huang Yunshuo’s attention most was the server’s first-ever main storyline quest.

[Cluckclaw’s Revenge: Level 10-20 Main Quest]

The projection of the mighty rooster, Cluckclaw, was not only prevented from unleashing his wrath but was also slain by adventurers. Enraged, Cluckclaw has decided to personally lead his army of beasts to lay siege to the town.

From now until 4 a.m. tomorrow, Cluckclaw’s beast army will gather in ever greater numbers. When the countdown ends, they will launch an assault on every player’s town. Make the most of the remaining time to strengthen yourselves!

Main objectives: Defend against the monster siege and defeat Cluckclaw.

Objective 1: Fewer than 10,000 animals may enter the town.

Objective 2: Slay at least 100,000 animals.

Objective 3: While fighting Cluckclaw, town NPCs must not deal more than 50% of the total damage.

If any of these objectives are not met, the defense is considered a failure; all town players will suffer a 10% reduction in all attributes and earnings for three days.

Players who successfully defend the town will enjoy a 10% boost to PvE attributes and rewards for three days, and all players will gain one level.

[Note: During the siege, player death will result in a loss of 20% of current level experience; if insufficient, the player will lose a level. Being killed by animals will not cause item drops.]

Huang Yunshuo’s first thought was that he could finally complete his Artifact Essence quest—this level-10 plastic boss must refer to Cluckclaw himself.

His second thought left his throat dry.

Back in the newbie village, he’d wondered why, aside from level 1 chicks, level 2 rock turtles, and level 3 bunnies, there were no monsters of levels 4 to 10. Where had they all gone?

So they were all hiding, waiting for Cluckclaw to lead them in rebellion!

“Level 5 white rabbits, level 6 sloths, level 7 white geese—but what about levels 4, 8, and 9? No idea yet. And level 10—could it be little roosters...?”

Little roosters with 20 defense, 300 HP, 100 attack, and frightening agility. Not just average players—even Huang Yunshuo felt a chill at the thought.

If a swarm of these descended, the players would be massacred.

Judging by how monster sieges work in other games, level 10 monsters would be the final wave, with not just the boss but also elite monsters. And those elites...

Huang Yunshuo thought of Stammering Liu, the level 10 rogue deserter with a whopping 120 attack.

That guy had 20 defense, at least 50 agility, and probably way more than 300 HP. Not that it would utterly crush Huang Yunshuo, but their health and attack were leagues beyond his own.

Imagining hundreds of Stammering Liu, Stammering Song, and Stammering Huang charging in from the horizon, leaping and slashing, each blow taking 90 HP from him—Huang Yunshuo shuddered. If all the elites were like that, Cluckclaw himself must have terrifying stats.

Suddenly, he felt the next ten-odd hours were anything but ample.

His cursed quest required him to deal at least 20% of Cluckclaw’s health in damage and land the killing blow—just thinking about it made his scalp tingle.

“No, before the siege starts, I have to at least craft one piece of alloy armor and a thruster. Both would be even better.”

Originally, he hadn’t planned on making a thruster so soon, since alloy armor required fewer materials, and he’d nearly gathered all the grade-8 ore needed.

But the thruster would let him take to the skies!