Chapter 20: The Challenger Initiative

Chapter 20: The Challenger Initiative

[Player Count: 90]

Primordial Traits Contained: 9

Players' Total Sacrificial Power Gained Today: 552

Players' Average Monster Level: 5

Territory Nodes Owned: Dizhong Village (The site where the last fragment of Imperial Omen’s essence was buried, possessing the territorial rule of "Flesh Reformation")

…

Qi Sheng glanced at the daily report before stepping onto the glowing Primordial Altar beneath his feet.

A brief spatial distortion later, he materialized in his real-world bedroom. Checking the wall calendar, he pushed open the window and transformed into his Imperial Omen Form, soaring into the night sky.

Eventually, he arrived at a desolate cemetery. The grounds were overgrown with vines, most tombstones weathered and illegible. Construction buzzed faintly in the distance—a new urban rail station being built nearby.

Qi Sheng halted before one grave. The faded photograph on its stone was blurred beyond recognition, the engraved words nearly erased by time.

His expression darkened. After a long silence, he knelt and pressed his forehead to the cold stone in a deep bow. Remaining like this for a while, he rose to clean the tombstone. Memories surged as he worked.

As a child, he’d dreamed of transcending ordinary limits. But when he finally gained that power, he inherited a crushing destiny instead.

He’d arrived in the Monster World at eighteen.

By then, the realm was already in chaos. The Monster King, Imperial Omen, had self-dissolved, leaving his loyal factions leaderless in a power vacuum. The war had raged for millennia—former lieutenants of Imperial Omen now vied to claim his throne.

Four factions stood out:

Yan Ming, wielder of Spatial Power;
Nine Shadows, master of Purification;
Guide, controller of Analysis;
Hyperdimension, manipulator of Essence Extraction.

Once Imperial Omen’s most loyal servants, they all believed themselves his rightful heir—each seeking the "Self-Forged Essence" buried in Dizhong Village, the last remnant of their lord’s power.

But the balance shattered with the arrival of the Black Tide.

The Monster World began corroding under its influence. Ecosystems collapsed. Spatial rifts tore through the land.

As the Black Tide spread, the four factions reluctantly united against the common threat. Yet prolonged war weakened them, while the Black Tide’s horrors grew stronger with every world they consumed.

Eventually, the four were driven to the edge of their realm—the sacred Dizhong Village, where Imperial Omen had sealed his core essence. There, they broke the forbidden seal and fled inside.

Dizhong Village became the Monster World’s last sanctuary.

The four intended to fuse with the sealed core fragment, inheriting Imperial Omen’s power to fight back.

But at the decisive moment, the Black Tide surged again, engulfing Dizhong.

Qi Sheng arrived during this catastrophe—sucked into the Black Tide’s vortex, moments from death.

The four factions united one last time, repelling the invasion and saving him. Their already-weakened forms suffered further damage in the process. Guide’s essence was reduced to a water orb.

Yet the greatest shock came when Qi Sheng, a mortal outsider, inherited the core fragment none of them could claim.

He still remembered the storm of emotions in their eyes—rage, confusion, despair, resentment, and reluctant acceptance.

Four mighty beings knelt before him, swearing eternal servitude.

He inherited their shattered hopes, vowing to save the Monster World and banish the Black Tide with Imperial Omen’s power.

After fusing with the core fragment and sleeping for 300 years, he spent another century learning under the four factions—mastering his powers and understanding the Monster World.

But to become a true Imperial Omen, he needed to leave Dizhong and recover his lost Primordial Power.

The journey proved brutal. Without cultivation methods to strengthen his physical form, he relied solely on containment. His initial strength barely surpassed the weakest Monster World creatures, and the Malevolent Corruption made growth agonizing.

The core fragment’s presence drew Black Tide horrors constantly. To mask this, Qi Sheng burned Sacrificial Power with every excursion—each outing draining precious reserves.

He collected entities like the Hawk-Headed Demon, Gargoyle, and Black-Scaled Serpent, gradually growing stronger.

Yet progress was agonizingly slow. The Sacrificial Power spent per trip far exceeded what he gained, while the four factions had already poured their last divine energies into Dizhong’s defenses.

At the current rate, Dizhong Village would collapse from Sacrificial Power depletion long before he gained enough strength.

Amidst this despair, Qi Sheng proposed his plan—the Challenger Initiative.

Leveraging the four factions’ mastery of different rules:

- Guide (Information) built a data system for challengees to read Monster World entities.
- Yan Ming (Spatial) created a beacon to transport challengees between worlds—and return them if they withdrew.
- Nine Shadows (Purification) designed a system to cleanse mental trauma and negative status.
- Hyperdimension (Extraction) engineered a growth system to fuse defeated monsters’ essence into challengees’ bodies.

Combined with Dizhong’s "Vital Reformation" territory rule, the plan became feasible.

The four factions spent fifty years perfecting the Challenger System. By then, Dizhong’s Sacrificial Pool held barely 10 million points—a decade’s supply, dwindling faster each day as the Black Tide intensified (from 500 to 1000 daily consumption).

With the decision made, Qi Sheng gambled everything.

Yan Ming burned Sacrificial Power to scan other worlds for potential challengees.

As they searched, Qi Sheng witnessed countless realms consumed by the Black Tide—lifeless wastelands overrun by horrors.

Just as reserves neared depletion, he saw it—a familiar blue planet.

Earth.

Though altered beyond recognition, he knew.

His smile broke through years of despair.

The Challenger Initiative had found its future.

(End of Chapter)

Chapter end