He wielded his stun baton, drawing an arc in front of him, entangling the shadow-dancing whip around it several times, attempting to yank the girl in his direction.
Long-term combat had trained Xu Xiaoyou to react swiftly. She quickly raised the whip over her head, her posture twisting enchantingly, and surprisingly, pulled it free from the stun baton coil by coil in the opposite direction. Seizing the opportunity, she hooked Li Si's arm, and the stray electric arcs on the whip surged with violent power at that instant!
A powerful current instantly pierced through Li Si’s body. His HP bar plummeted visibly, and his numb hands rendered him immobile. Just as defeat seemed certain, Li Si's expression suddenly changed, a hint of mockery in his smile.
Xu Xiaoyou sensed something and turned her head. A nearby wall burst open with a crash, and a dangerous red light flashed through the billowing dust. A porcelain-white hand abruptly reached out from within, and before she could retreat, it grabbed her and slammed her against the wall.
Her back slammed against the wall with no cushioning, a sour-sweet taste rising from her lungs. Xu Xiaoyou coughed up blood, a few crimson trickles running down the corner of her mouth, dripping onto the porcelain-white arm. The sight stunned the players present.
It was a riot-type autonomous robot!
Facing this dungeon's ceiling-level BOSS creature, a sense of despair rose in the hearts of all the players, including Yueyue.
After all, Dark Gold Rose was not an omnipotent deity. Trying to contend with such an inherent NPC, responsible for maintaining the game rules in the dungeon, across a difference of dozens of times in attributes, was simply impossible.
Indeed, Oasis was filled with similar NPCs, whether in dungeons or on the main map. Players called them orderers. They often appeared with three-dimensional attributes dozens of times higher than the players in the current area, or possessed irresistible rule-based powers. They were entities specifically dispatched by the Order Court to maintain the basic order of the Oasis world.
Typically, orderers were, by design, unconquerable.
Even the most top-tier players would find themselves restricted by an orderer, unable to act as they pleased in the Oasis world.
“: This is bad, we're done for.”
“: Caught by an orderer, it's over. Dark Gold Rose boss, I can't watch anymore.”
“: Is Dark Gold Rose's myth finally going to be shattered?”
“: Hmph, Dark Gold Rose isn't all that. Can't even clear a beginner dungeon. What a spectacle.”
“: Laughing so hard, they made her out to be some god, how amazing. Why did she get caught the moment I entered the live stream? Just an empty facade.”
“: Is her difficulty level the same as yours? She's practically fighting the entire dungeon alone, okay?]
Viewers who had long disliked Dark Gold Rose swarmed out like flies, spewing all sorts of snarky remarks. The live stream chat quickly devolved into a heated argument.
“Did you think I was just playing house with you earlier?” Li Si chuckled, wiping the blood from his mouth. He staggered to his feet and pointed the stun baton at Xu Xiaoyou.
“From the moment we engaged, I sent a command to the enforcer. Fighting you was just to buy time. I'd like to see what tricks you have left now, and where you can possibly run!”
“So shameless, why bother making excuses for yourself?” Xu Xiaoyou's lips curled into an almost imperceptible smile.
“Hmph, still running your mouth even when death is at your door.” A sinister glint flashed in Li Si's eyes as he sneered.
Just then, another enforcer appeared, standing behind Li Si.
Li Si's heart settled completely. Two enforcers—there was no way for the other party to escape now, even with wings. Just as he was fantasizing about the honor and rewards he would receive for capturing the doctor, the shadow of a mechanical hand loomed over the back of his head.
“Huh?”
“HP -999. Your subordinate, the ‘riot-type autonomous robot,’ inflicted bludgeoning damage on ‘Law Enforcer Li Si.’
This damage triggered a critical hit!”
Under the horrified gaze of the live stream audience, red and white splattered as those hands crushed the young man’s head.
This is...!?
Before the previous enforcer could react, the slender figure who had crushed Li Si’s head erupted, snatching up a large hammer and slamming it onto the ground, then furiously delivering several more blows until its entire chest was caved in, crushing the precision components within its electronic heart to smithereens.
Electric sparks crackled and jumped within the complex cluster of circuits. After a few struggles, the once formidable enforcer turned into a pile of scrap metal, utterly motionless.
Before everyone's eyes, the enforcer dropped the large hammer, crushed the silver mask on its face, and strode a few steps to Xu Xiaoyou's front. It knelt down reverently, carefully taking the girl's fingertips and placing them against its cheek. A strange blush appeared on its synthetic skin.
“Doctor, I have carried out your command and eliminated all your enemies.
The cold female electronic voice seemed imbued with warmth. The enforcer, learning how humans formed language, spoke slowly, timidly, tentatively.
“Can you… give me a reward?”
“Of course.”
Xu Xiaoyou smiled, her golden eyes reflecting the porcelain-white figure. Her fingertips hooked and gently caressed the other’s face, as if bestowing a reward, while thoughts surfaced in her mind.
This enforcer was the one she had first encountered on the train. The moment they met, it seemed to have been charmed by her charisma attribute, triggering a subjugation judgment. When she infiltrated the noble carriage, it actually defied its fundamental logical commands and voluntarily followed her.
Upon discovering this, she chose to keep it hidden by her side, anticipating Li Si's intentions and collaborating to put on a good show for all the players watching the live stream.
Events unfolded exactly as she expected, perhaps even more intensely than she imagined. Everyone was stunned.
The reversal came too quickly. The live stream was silent for a moment, then the bullet screen instantly exploded, dense comments almost completely obscuring the screen.
“: Holy crap, did I see that right?”
“: Dark Gold Rose charmed this dungeon’s orderer into becoming her subordinate??”
“: Ah, you can play it like that?”
“: She’s practically a succubus! In reality, she made Abyssal White Flower willingly act like her dog, and in the game, she can even charm an orderer. This has never happened before!”
“: Witnessing history.”
“: Witnessing history 2!”
“: Witnessing history 10086!”
“: Haters, speak up!”
The snarky commenters from before were now silent, slinking out of the live stream, their faces filled with existential doubt as they opened the forum to post for help.
Xu Xiaoyou's action instantly ignited Oasis's world forum. Thousands of posts sprang up like mushrooms after rain, beginning to analyze why an orderer would be charmed, and what level of attributes might trigger such a subjugation judgment.
The guild masters of major guilds also engaged in heated discussions in online meetings, analyzing the reality and rationality of this event with various examples, but such discussions and analyses were destined to yield no results.
It should be known that the player with the highest publicly revealed charisma attribute in Oasis was only a little over seven hundred and six. That was a songstress in the virtual world, and this was even after she mobilized her family's power, almost collecting all the charisma items in the game to boost it.
Yet, even so, the most she had ever charmed was a leader of a wasteland world, making him willingly launch three thousand five hundred and twenty nuclear warheads to wipe out the entire wasteland world on her birthday, giving her an unprecedented fireworks celebration.
But according to her own description,
When she stood before an orderer of even the lowest-level dungeon, it was like facing an unmelting iceberg. Her charisma attribute was so tiny, so pale, so powerless.
No one had ever imagined
that an orderer could be charmed into a subordinate.
But Dark Gold Rose did it, and even she, the person involved, didn't fully understand how outrageous this was.
This matter eventually escalated to alarm the higher echelons of the Oasis Order Court, but that is a story for another time.
Returning to the game.
Rate on N.U.
