Chapter 170
“System, talk properly. This tone of yours feels weird.” Lu Chuan thought the upgrade had really changed #888. At first it had been nothing more than a flat machine voice, but now its speech rose and fell with real emotion—its delivery rivaling a top actor’s.
[Understood, Host.] #888 adjusted its tone without complaint.
“What were you doing while I was in the trial dungeon?” Lu Chuan quickly got to the point. “I tried calling you, but I couldn’t hear your voice at all.”
[That’s because, Host, the ‘Forbidden Zone for Humans’ is a series dungeon. You first entered the trial version. That means your actions in the official dungeon will directly shape the trial’s outcome. Normally, players act first and then see results. But in this dungeon, it’s reversed—you’re shown the ending first, and then sent back to the beginning.] #888 explained. [Because of that temporal difference, though I was beside you, you couldn’t hear me.]
“…Wait a second. Let me check my system space.” Lu Chuan didn’t quite buy it, so he immediately checked.
Everything opened normally.
“Damn it! Why did the trial dungeon still deduct my money?” His first reaction was to check his wealth—and found his system’s gold reserves nearly empty, with much of it probably borrowed from elsewhere to fill the gap.
In the trial, he’d had no other tools—only the Fortune God skill. And its cost was astronomical.
For the ten years he had spent as Star City’s Lord, he had to activate the Fortune God skill nearly every day, because cultists kept coming to kill him.
Over time, the expenses had snowballed into an unimaginable fortune.
Ten years of spending without replenishment had drained his gold reserves completely.
Lu Chuan felt like the sky was collapsing.
All that effort, and he didn’t even get experience—yet his money was gone for good.
What was the point of living? Might as well die.
The odds of clearing this dungeon were low anyway. Even Wen Renxu couldn’t pass it, so what chance did he have?
What was the difference between being broke and being dead?
Heaven help us—Host, you can’t just now realize you’re broke!
Weren’t you the one who chugged Calmness Potions to raise your sanity, just so you could spend without hesitation?
Now that the trial is over and the potions have worn off, you’re suddenly collapsing?
[Host, as long as you work to change things and avoid that final outcome, you should be able to recover your wealth.] #888 quickly reassured him. [The trial dungeon showed you the “fated future” given by the God of Time. But the future can be altered.]
…Though the chances of changing it were vanishingly small.
[This is the origin point of everything in the series of instances.] #888 explained. [Different timelines will branch out in different ways, but the very beginning remains the same. That’s the advantage, Host—it means that at this point in time, all players have the chance to encounter each other. Once this node passes, they’ll move onto their separate branches.]
If Lu Chuan’s earlier trial instance had been the ending, then what he was in now was the beginning.
In this chaotic web of timelines, this thread’s start represented the possibility of reunion.
Even a series of instances needed a beginning and an end.
Why did #888 discover this?
Because here, its restrictions were minimal, almost like being in the real world—no suppression from the Main God System.
That was because, in this series of instances, the Main God System held no dominance. Instead, the God of Time ruled this world, which meant #888 was no longer constrained by the Main God System and could provide Lu Chuan with information normally inaccessible to players.
For example, it could scan how many gods currently existed in this world, or roughly measure their strength.
As long as it didn’t probe concept gods or true gods, it wouldn’t be detected.
“Really?” Lu Chuan frowned at #888’s explanation, feeling something off but unable to pinpoint it for now.
[Really, really.] #888 replied.
“…Fine.” Lu Chuan temporarily set aside his doubts. “Let’s see what the situation is this time.”
888 finally breathed a sigh of relief. As long as its Host kept fighting spirit, nothing was truly a problem.
Lu Chuan carefully examined his current state.
And sure enough, he discovered something.
The time period he was in was an information-driven modern society, no different from the world he’d come from before crossing over. At this point, there was no Main God System, no gods, and Lu Chuan was just a fresh college graduate struggling to find a job, facing setback after setback.
When he searched the internet with keywords like “mysterious disappearance,” “strange incidents,” and “god believers,” he occasionally found fragments of posts or videos—but those messages were quickly deleted. Any so-called “miracle videos” were buried in comments like “great acting” or “awesome special effects.”
[Host, why are you looking this stuff up?] #888 dutifully asked.
“You think I was dropped into this timeline to enjoy life?” Lu Chuan said flatly. “Clearly, this is the last revelry before the apocalypse. There’s no Main God System here, but gods will still appear, bringing about the end times I already saw in the trial. By now, the signs must already be there, only suppressed temporarily. I’m checking the current state.”
888 nodded in understanding and analyzed: [Gods invade gradually. Even the Main God System needed centuries to ease humanity into becoming players. But here, the pace will likely be much faster.]
The Main God System, seeking humans capable of devouring gods and fighting them, still gave humanity some breathing room—granting abilities, selecting the best, leaving space to grow. It wanted control, not annihilation, so it offered sweeteners first.
But the gods’ invasion was different. Each sought faith, and they fought each other. When gods warred, natural disasters and catastrophes followed. Modern society had no weaponry to counter them—leading to mass human die-offs. Only those who adapted to apocalypse would survive, while civilizations and arsenals crumbled overnight.
Now was the eve of full-scale invasion and divine war.
Perhaps some nations had sensed something was wrong, but no one imagined their world would collapse into ruin so suddenly.
“I checked birth and death rates earlier—the mortality rate is abnormally high,” Lu Chuan muttered, pulling open his curtains to watch the bustling streets. “And newborn deformities and illnesses are spiking. Experts blame pollution. Hah—pollution doesn’t act that fast. It’s mutation. The gods have already stepped in. It can’t be stopped.”
If only one or two gods had arrived, he might’ve tried rallying state power—killing cultists to disrupt descents, maybe driving gods out. Now? Such hopes were fantasy.
There were already too many cultists. The peace that remained was paper-thin—one poke and it would rip.
[Yes, Host. A quick scan shows over two thousand gods have already invaded. More than half are still preaching, so they haven’t acted yet.] #888 reported grimly.
“Three months at most before doomsday,” Lu Chuan calculated. “The gods are impatient. Their recruitment spreads like infection. And the system won’t let us relax for long. Our time is limited.”
His expression hardened.
“There’s no time, #888.” He pulled on clothes and headed downstairs. “Draws are twice a week. From drawing to claiming, once a week at best. So, calculate the latest winning lottery numbers. Once I have the money, I’ll tear through the stock market. First, I’ll scoop up most of this world’s gold. Who knows how much we’ll need to burn later?”
888: ……
Excellent. Truly worthy of being my Host.
Lu Chuan hurried down his path of wealth hoarding.
Lotteries, gambling, horse races, stocks—anything that brought fast cash. He converted the money into gold, silver, jewelry—everything—stuffing them into his nearly empty system space.
Alongside wealth, he filled the hole in his heart.
Finally, he had money again.
The sight of an empty inventory space had crushed him. But now, he had another chance. Even if it would all be spent eventually, at least he had it.
Of course, such frenzy drew attention.
Lu Chuan brushed them off, claiming he’d stop—then kept going anyway.
Time was short. He needed capital.
Naturally, cultists tried recruiting him too—his fortune-making stirred too much buzz. Many suspected he was secretly backed by a god, explaining his meteoric wealth.
Lu Chuan drove them all away, no exceptions.
He was racing against the God of Time—don’t waste his money-making hours!
Meanwhile—
Many master-ranked players who’d entered the Forbidden Zone: Humanity series also encountered each other at this earliest node.
Unlike Lu Chuan, who chose to lie flat and rake in wealth until doomsday, many still held a strong sense of responsibility.
After their trial runs, they sought ways to change the future:
Some joined government agencies, purging cults and trying to delay the apocalypse.
Some built forces of their own, training followers to survive the end.
Some hunted weaker gods first, then sought alliances with other players to banish them together.
Amidst all this, Lu Chuan’s odd behavior naturally attracted notice.
Players tried approaching him, wondering if he was one of them—hoping they could cooperate to tackle the instance.
But Lu Chuan rejected them all.
[Host, these players are strong. Is it wise to refuse them all?] #888 asked, feeling it a pity—Lu Chuan was too focused on cash to care.
“If Wen Renxu were among them, maybe I’d listen. The rest? Forget it.” Lu Chuan was calm. “Most of them are already dead. Only because I’m at this earliest node do I even see them here, as shadows of time. If their efforts truly worked, the world I faced in my trial wouldn’t have been doomsday. So why waste time? Better to get richer, so I can unlock more skills later.”
Changing the future wouldn’t start here.
He knew—if altering the beginning worked, this series would’ve been cleared long ago.
He had already reviewed every legendary investigator’s file during his trial.
Anyone not named there? Proof they were weaklings on the rankings—likely killed early by the world.
Now, with gods invading en masse, and players flailing about, it was inevitable they’d be targeted. That explained why, in the end, so few became legendary investigators who left their mark.
At the very beginning, even though there were an absurd number of players, nothing about the situation could be changed.
Every individual’s choices would create a different timeline. That meant the time each player experienced, and the people they met, were completely different in this dungeon world.
Only because this moment was the point where all disputes began did they briefly cross paths.
Once that point passed, they would again move along different parallel lines.
While Lu Chuan was exploring the dungeon, he never saw any other players — not a single one. Even Starry Ming and Wen Renxu, members of the same Guild, were nowhere to be found.
But now, back to the main point: society itself was being quietly reshaped.
Gradually, even the state media couldn’t hide it anymore.
More and more people were mysteriously disappearing or dying. Cultists of the evil gods began to mutate in full view of the public, attacking anyone nearby. They were impervious to bullets; even a single mutated cultist could easily cause thousands of casualties.
After spreading terror, the cults of these gods would swoop in to preach, offering so-called charms and promises: as long as you believed in their faith, you’d no longer be attacked, and so on.
Lu Chuan would leave home three times a day and, at minimum, encounter a dozen different missionary groups.
Naturally, this also began to erode Lu Chuan’s “wealth empire” plan.
One day, while inventorying his warehouse, Lu Chuan discovered that nearly half of one store of gold had mutated into something no longer recognizable as “gold.” Worse, it was contaminating the rest of the stock. Lu Chuan knew then: the day had finally arrived.
The gods had revealed their claws.
The war between humans and deities was essentially a chronicle of humanity’s extinction.
The first targets destroyed were the large arms factories.
Once the descent rituals were completed, even if only for a few minutes, the gods could strike those facilities from afar. Humanity couldn’t even choose mutual destruction, or blow up Earth itself.
Next, they crippled communications and media, cutting off access to up-to-date information, letting panic spread unchecked.
Then even the air became toxic.
Growing plants and livestock died or sickened, and those that survived were warped to varying degrees. Anyone who ate them either died or mutated into monsters — there was no other outcome.
Staying indoors and eating packaged food didn’t work either, because the air itself was tainted.
Worse, thanks to the god [Dream of Nothingness], once humans drifted into sleep, He could turn them into His believers inside their dreams. It was an utterly perverse skill.
Lu Chuan looked at all this and knew it had been inevitable.
In a dungeon of the [God of Time], humanity was always this fragile.
But Lu Chuan hadn’t done nothing. On the internet, he had very publicly searched for “Wen Renxu,” mentioning the name now and then to try to draw the Guildmaster out — at least to meet and talk about this dungeon.
When other players came looking for him, Lu Chuan would even kindly ask, “Do you know Wen Renxu?” and, if they said no, he’d promptly send them packing.
But for some reason, Wen Renxu never showed up.
Either he hadn’t entered the dungeon at this point in the timeline, or he had arrived but hadn’t revealed himself yet.
It seemed only a desperate measure would work.
“Little System, how many search-type tools are left in my system? Take them all out. I don’t know when Wen Renxu might arrive in this world, or if we’ll meet at the right time, but we’ll just have to try our luck,” Lu Chuan said seriously.
He’d refrained from using the tools before, worried Wen Renxu might be sent in at the very last moment — which wasn’t impossible.
But with the world clearly about to collapse into apocalypse, Wen Renxu should already be around.
[There are still three items left, and they’re all high-grade. But since Wen Renxu is the guild master of Starry Sky Games, he probably has plenty of items that block tracking. Ours might not work.]
888 gave its assessment.
“There’s no helping it; we have to try,” Lu Chuan said, resolute. He had planned to find Wen Renxu by other means, but with no news at all, tools were the only option.
[Understood.] #888 nodded.
[I’ll do my best to help you search. Here, the constraints from the main system are minimal — I can do a lot for you in this dungeon.]
“Thanks for the effort,” Lu Chuan said softly.
888 beamed inside, happily activating both its item functions and scanning protocols, frantically searching for Wen Renxu.
Meanwhile, Wen Renxu was slowly materializing in this world.
He opened his system space and skillfully used an anti-scrying tool to keep the dungeon’s gods from spotting him.
“The trial dungeon’s over… I wonder if this world can even be saved,” Wen Renxu sighed.
The next second, a different expression crossed his face — as though he’d become someone else entirely.
“Why worry about that? You should be worrying about how to change your doomed ending in this trial. I don’t care if you die, but I’m not dying with you.”
“How about this, main personality — let Old Eight take over. He’s crazy, but at least he’s competent. Without him, you’d have been possessed by a god in the last dungeon ages ago.”
“Shut up, all of you.” Wen Renxu crushed the mutinous voices of his split personalities.
“Don’t think you can run wild just because we’re in a dungeon. If you really get in my way, I won’t hesitate to take you all down with me.”
He forcibly suppressed them, but the sweat beading on his forehead betrayed his weakness.
He’d entered this dungeon for a simple reason: rumor had it that clearing it would earn the [God of Time]’s gift — a chance to alter the past.
With that, he could find his original self and erase the extra personalities.
After so many years as a player, his alters had only grown stronger, honing their powers. Now they were almost beyond his control.
If this continued, he wouldn’t die at the hands of the main system but at those of the other selves inside him.
Just then, Wen Renxu sensed a strange force.
What was that?
[Host, I’ve found him!]
