Chapter 152 - Restriction On Cutting Down Trees Was Impossible (Part 4)

After the Rock Ghost King led his army to join the battle, the situation devolved into a one-sided attack.

Meanwhile, the players were heading toward the mahogany hut. The battle had persisted for six hours and apart from the Evil Ghost Generals holed up in the Zombie Energy Pillars, the surrounding evil spirits had all been wiped out.

However, there was still no end in sight. Now, the Rock Ghost King was using his gigantic body to strike one of the twelve Zombie Energy Pillars ruthlessly.

However, the Zombie Energy Pillar was exceedingly solid and sturdy. Even with the tremendous strength of the Rock Ghost King’s attacks, it simply refused to collapse.

Meanwhile, the players and Tree Demon Army had surrounded the twelve Zombie Energy Pillars and helped exterminate the newly birthed evils.

No doubt, that matter greatly worried the Rock Ghost King as well. While he was focussing on demolishing the Zombie Energy Pillars, the numbers in his camp would undoubtedly suffer substantial losses while battling against the evil spirits.

Fortunately, there were players there to share the burden of killing the spirits from eight of the Zombie Energy Pillars. The Rock Ghost King’s Tree Demon Army simply needed to tackle the evil spirits from the remaining four pillars. Since the pressure had vastly diminished, that enabled the Rock Ghost King to concentrate solely on destroying the Zombie Energy Pillars.

Under the repeated impact from the Rock Ghost King, a crack finally appeared on the Zombie Energy Pillar.

“Destroy!”

The Rock Ghost King’s hundred-meter tall body rose straight from the ground and landed fiercely on the crumbling Zombie Energy Pillar that was filled with cracks.

“Boom!”

The towering Zombie Energy Pillar finally toppled, releasing a wave of rich zombie energy.

Then, a black orb emerged from the thick mist and soared into the sky.

However, the Rock Ghost King did nothing to obstruct it. He turned toward a second Zombie Energy Pillar and instantly barreled into it.

Needless to say, the players were baffled. They could not comprehend why the Rock Ghost King would let the orb, which could produce zombie energy, free. However, they did not have any players of a flying character class. Thus, there was naturally nothing they could do to stop it.

They could only watch helplessly as the orb, a potential treasure, drifted off.

While the Rock Ghost King was destroying the second Zombie Energy Pillar, the players seemed quite relaxed. Countless mahogany huts dotted the land around the Zombie Energy Pillars that they were guarding. Once new evil spirits were spawned, they did not even have to act before the Door Gods would proactively annihilate them. In the meantime, all they had to do was use their skills at the Zombie Energy Pillars.

However, the Zombie Energy Pillars were ridiculously stubborn. Not only did the attacks from the players inflict zero damage to them, but the Evil Ghost Generals would also occasionally leap out and attack.

Despite that, they could still easily beat them every time.

The satisfaction from grinding monsters made the players quite reluctant to destroy the Zombie Energy Pillars.

However, it merely remained as a thought, since the existence of evil spirits had thoroughly disrupted the balance in Beiqi. Even if all of these Zombie Energy Pillars were destroyed, evil spirits would still prowl on every inch of the Land of Beiqi at this stage. It would unmistakably be time-consuming to ensure all the spirits were completely eliminated.

“Boom!”

At this moment, a crack surfaced across the second Zombie Energy Pillar. A surge of zombie energy burst from the cracks while a black orb whizzed toward the sky again.

The third pillar…

The fourth pillar…

Just as the Rock Ghost King was about to take down the last Zombie Energy Pillar, Wu Guoyi spoke all of a sudden.

“Rock Ghost King, why don’t we just keep this pillar!”

The Rock Ghost King paused in his tracks and turned his head around to stare at him.

“Why?”

“Its existence can help to reduce…”

Initially, Wu Guoyi had wished to say that the Zombie Energy Pillar might help reduce the frequency of trees in the North Rocks being felled by players. However, before half of the sentence tumbled off his tongue, he realized that it would sound too blunt, so he coughed as a disguise.

“Its existence can help to cut back on our energy consumption?”

“What do you mean?” the Rock Ghost King seemed rather perplexed.

This gave Wu Guoyi a sharp headache as he did not know how to respond. He was afraid that if he said it too directly, he would upset the Rock Ghost King and cause him to murder them all on the spot.

“Sure!” replied the Rock Ghost King out of nowhere.

Wu Guoyi was dumbfounded, as he could not comprehend why the Rock Ghost King would suddenly be so easy-going.

“Still, you guys must promise me that you will never invade the North Rocks. In return, I will approve of your position as Beiqi’s new force.”

“No way, we would rather starve than not cutting down trees!”

“That’s right, that’s right. Logging is the shortcut to immense wealth. Don’t you know that it’s as cruel as killing one’s parents to stop someone from obtaining wealth?”

“Rock Ghost King, this is your fault. Cutting trees and keeping the Zombie Energy Pillar are two entirely different matters. We need trees to upgrade our boats!”

“If worse comes to worst, we could reduce the number of trees felled by one. It’s impossible to stop logging once and for all, as that’s the only way to upgrade our boats.”

……

This surprising turn of events thrust the players into fervent discussions. Meanwhile, the branches around the Rock Ghost King came to life menacingly, while a vicious glimmering light flashed in his eyes.

Seeing this, Wu Guoyi announced on the live chat channel, “Stop it, the Rock Ghost King is practically fuming. If you guys want to cut down trees, there’s not a need to speak about it so openly, just keep it to yourself. In the future, you can just sneak in surreptitiously. For now, we must promise him first!”

Instantly, the chat was plunged into total silence.

Then, Wu Guoyi looked at the Rock Ghost King with a solemn face and said, “Alright, I promise you!”

The dancing branches gradually slowed and retracted as the anger in the Rock Ghost King’s eyes seemed to subside. He then stared at Wu Guoyi and said, “I hope that you can keep your promise!”

Wu Guoyi nodded awkwardly.

In actuality, he was merely a temporary commander for the current battle event. Once it ended, he would no longer possess the ability to constrain these players. As such, his promise was not a representation of the agreement with all of the players.

Besides, cutting down trees was the only method for ordinary players to upgrade their boats at this stage. So, it was simply unrealistic to restrict their logging activities.

Moreover, by keeping this Zombie Energy Pillar, it could at least lessen the frequency of players teaming up to cut down trees in the North Rocks. Thus, it would still be considered beneficial for the North Rocks.

After another glance at Wu Guoyi the Rock Ghost King’s massive body rose into the air, as he headed toward the North Rocks. Meanwhile, the Tree Demon Army from below steadily retreated.

When the players saw the situation, they also stowed away their mahogany huts and disbanded. They wanted to stop attacking the last Zombie Energy Pillar for a while.

In fact, the sole purpose behind preserving this Zombie Energy Pillar was not because they would not destroy it anymore. After all, the main quest of the ongoing game content was to destroy all Zombie Energy Pillars to advance.

The most important reason they wanted to keep this Zombie Energy Pillar standing was for its continuous supply of evil spirits, so that players could still kill the monsters and easily level up.

Although there were a few million players now, a majority of them were new players. This meant that their overall strength could not be elevated by much. Furthermore, there were only a handful of areas in inner Beiqi where players could grind evil spirits.

In areas like the North Rocks, which was under the command of a Ghost King, players could only enter sneakily as they would not be able to retaliate.

Hence, by conserving this Zombie Energy Pillar, players could develop and grow by relying on the strength of the evil spirits. This was important and absolutely necessary from Wu Guoyi’s point of view.

Of course, this was not his decision alone to make, but rather a decision that was made after discussing with the presidents of several influential guilds.

After all, only when the players’ overall strength had increased, their hunting range would expand accordingly.

……

In Evil Nightmare City, Little Sha reached out and seized the 11th orb that had fallen from the sky. He shoved it into the Yin Soul Eye Seal and resumed waiting, as he sat in the coffin with his hands tucked under his cheeks.

Then, he waited for a very long time…

Little Sha gazed up at the sky blankly.

“Did it lose its way?”