MMO: Pierce Heaven Til’ It Breaks

 Shock! Confusion! Anger!

Nobody had even questioned the source of the news, as their attention was wholly dedicated to the dissemination of the idea that Aragon had transformed into a demon…

At that time, the only person who knew the truth, Alenod had fought tooth and nail to get the truth out. Alas, his words fell on deaf ears as nobody believed him. They were more willing to believe the narrative that Aragon was a demon that infiltrated the human world and that his actions had ulterior motives.

Alenod snuck back into the secret meeting room and demanded the demon that transformed Aragon teach him the method of dispelling the transformation. Unfortunately, Alenod had committed another mistake, as he had underestimated the Demonic Tribe’s cunning.

By sacrificing its own life, the demon cast a Shapeshifting Spell on Alenod. From that moment onwards, Alenod was a penguin…

“What fools those hundreds of tribes were. What fools. In order to discredit Aragon’s past deeds, they changed the title of The Four Heroes of Humanity into the Three Heroes of Humanity, and they even expunged all records of Aragon from history. As for the person who defeated the Demon Tribe, the credit went to the Almighty Ruler of God. F*ck that, the so-called mighty Ruler of God never appeared once throughout our war against the demons, where we suffered millions of casualties!”

“Do you know how laughable the Ruler of God Appreciation Festival sounds? Have you ever considered it? That f*cking festival should’ve been dedicated to Aragon instead!” Tears streamed down the fat penguin’s face.

Ding!

[You have listened to the Secrets of the Luo Lan Empire. Your Glory Reputation Value has increased by 1 point.]

The usual chime of the system notification rang out, and Li Yi had received one Glory Reputation Point.

Within King of Pantheon, the hardest Reputation Points to earn was not from that of the Demonic Tribe, but the Gods. Furthermore, throughout his current life’s three years of gameplay, Li Yi had only received 1 Glory Reputation Point, which was the one he had just received.

“Don’t you find this entire situation hilarious? Humanity’s hero branded a traitor, and the mighty emperor branded a demon. All of his past accolades have been expunged from history, and everything was forgotten. History is scary, very scary indeed…”

“Oh yeah, Aragon’s still alive. Aragon’s still ALIVE…” Alenod’s eyes suddenly lit up. He suddenly jumped toward Li Yi’s feet and extended his flippers to grab onto Li Yi’s feet.

“Young one, can you fulfill a request of mine?”

Ding!

[Do you accept Alenod’s request?]

Li Yi nodded.

A Quest Pane popped up.

[Quest Title: The Forgotten Hero of Humanity]

[Quest Details: Find Aragon and apologize to him in Alenod’s stead. Then, hand him the Potion of Revealment.]

[Quest Difficulty: Rank A]

[Quest hint: Head to Karan City in the Sixth Demon God’s Domain in Foreignland. From there, you will be able to find Aragon.]

[Quest Reward: ???]

…

Upon accepting the quest, a Potion of Revealment was automatically placed into Li Yi’s bag.

“This potion can remove all sorts of Demonic spells. Give it to Aragon and tell… tell him that this is an object of atonement from a sinner.”

“Splash!”

Once he issued the quest, Alenod dove back into the water…

The Hall of Fame Quest had officially begun!

Li Yi rubbed his Return City Stone and returned to the Invincible Continent.

Now that Li Yi had activated his Hall of Fame Quest, the next thing on his to-do list was to visit Aragon. However, as nobody was able to kill the current Seventh Demon God, he had no way of reaching the Sixth Demon God’s Domain.

In order to reach the Sixth Demon God’s Domain, he would first need to kill the Seventh Demon God.

Since Li Yi’s bag was filled with a bunch of good stuff, the first thing he did upon reaching the Celestial Capital, was to sell off the equipment that he could not use in the Auction House.

Li Yi’s expedition to the north this time round had yielded plentiful rewards. Such was the case for Qian’er and Autumn Love as well. Now that all three of them were together, they were frantically exchanging loot with one another.

Li Yi generously gave Qian’er all of the Fire-related Skill Tomes that he found. In addition, he also gave three pieces of Reinforced Epic-level Ice Cloth Armor to Autumn Love.

Originally, Li Yi had no plans to give Black Autumn anything. What made him change his mind, however, was that the Black-hearted Chick herself had passed him two pieces of Legendary Equipment and a Level 105 Trap Skill, Quicksand Trap.

After all, how could Li Yi afford to be stingy if the Black-hearted Chick herself had acted so generously? Despite that, Li Yi slightly regretted his decision after seeing the equipment he had given her being sold in the Auction House not long after.

Qian’er’s gift for Li Yi was extremely valuable. It was a +1,000 STR Epic Necklace, and on top of it, it had also provided +5 Holy attribute. It was without a doubt, the strongest necklace in the current meta.

Upon exiting the Auction House, Li Yi immediately began his journey towards the Mermaid Village, giving no time for rest.

Now that he had lost his Mermaid Princess Summoning Stone, Li Yi could no longer find anything exciting. Had he not needed to activate the Hall of Fame Quest, Li Yi would have gone and looked for her a long time ago.

‘F*cking Mermaid Queen, you piece of sh*t…’

Li Yi was underwater and making his way there on his Tortoise Mount. While doing so, he constantly spouted expletives.

The Tortoise Mount was actually quite fast underwater, but compared to the Mermaid Princess, there was a huge difference.

Whenever he rode the Mermaid Princess, the impression he got was that he was being whisked away, which was a stark contrast to the sluggish speed that made Li Yi want to curse in frustration.

“Chachachacha!”

A bunch of Level 90 Blue-named Monsters, Big Gunner Prawns scurried out of their hiding spot and attacked Li Yi.

“Shoot at Random!”

Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud…

Mere moments after Li Yi had used Shoot at Random, the Big Gunner Prawns had been wiped out.

“God damn it. I wouldn’t have been surrounded if I was riding on Lil Mermaid.” Li Yi was even more frustrated now.

Despite that, the Tortoise Mount continued to march onward at a speed that was neither fast nor slow, ignoring its owner’s emotions.

After twenty hours or so, Tortoise Mount finally brought Li Yi to the Dead Sea.

Li Yi had already lost count of the number of times he got surrounded during this journey. Simply put, he had been surrounded plenty of times. Although the monsters were no threat to him, the constant pointless combat was causing him mental strain.

‘I wouldn’t need to go through this if I had Lil Mermaid with me.’ The more Li Yi thought about it, the more vexed he got.

However, the following events filled him with even more dread.

Li Yi had finally reached the Golden Arrowfish’s territory.

The Golden Arrowfishes were a school of Level 300 monsters. They had insane movement speeds and specialized in piercing attacks. Furthermore, anything that was caught in their encirclement, even if it was a 90,000,000 HP purple-named boss, would be instantly burst down.

As the Golden Arrowfishes were even faster than a fired arrow, evading their blows was no easy task.

“Woosh…Woosh…Woosh…”

The moment Li Yi entered the Golden Arrowfishes’ territory, he had instantly attracted their attention. With their breakneck speeds and insane ATK, even if Li Yi had Released his Territory, he would be powerless against them.

After enduring 3 seconds of attacks, Li Yi was killed.

Fortunately, Li Yi had already moved all of his equipment, including the Sacramental Stone Fragments into the Space Pearl before the Golden Arrowfishes killed him. As such, the only thing he lost upon death was a meager amount of EXP.

Li Yi utilized his soul form to drag his corpse forward, and upon his third death, he activated his Holy Light Talisman to revive on the spot.

“Woosh…Woosh…Woosh…”

The Golden Arrowfishes lunged at him, and once again, he was dead on the ground.

Players were not allowed to die more than three times consecutively. If they did, there was a high likelihood of them being sent back to their nation by the system, in addition to a level decrease.

Li Yi resurrected using the Holy Light Talisman once after 3 corpse runs. By doing so, he could reset his death counter and would prevent himself from being sent back by the system.

On his next death, Li Yi resumed the corpse-dragging process. After three deaths, he used another Holy Light Talisman to reset his death counter again.

There was a limit to the number of times that ‘on-the-spot’ Resurrection Tools could be used. At most, players could only use them 3 times a day, and in other words, regardless of the number of ‘Resurrection Tools’ players carried, they could only use them 3 times each day.

Li Yi corpse-ran, corpse-dragged, corpse-ran, and corpse-dragged repeatedly…

Li Yi ran back and forth, and only after he had expended all three of his Holy Light Talismans, did he finally pass the Gold Arrowfishes’ territory.

That was how the Gold Arrowfishes’ territory was designed. If players were unable to overpower them, they would need to expend three Holy Light Talismans in order to get through it.

Li Yi summoned his Tortoise Mount again, and while maintaining a wary eye on the surroundings to avoid any monsters, they carefully moved forward.

With all three of his ‘on-the-spot’ resurrections consumed; Li Yi’s next death could very well bring him back to the capital.

The area in front was the territory of the Spirit Fishes, and in terms of lethality, they were far more dangerous than the Golden Arrowfishes.

Consuming three Resurrection Talismans and corpse-dragging through the Golden Arrowfishes’ territory was no secret tactic in Li Yi’s past life. Heck, for players who loved to adventure, they had already devised the corpse-dragging tactic to make it through difficult maps since day 1 of the game’s release.

However, relying solely on the talismans and corpse-dragging was not a viable tactic for making it through the Spirit Fishes’ territory. This was due to it being three times the size of the Golden Arrowfishes’ territory. The wide area was impossible to corpse-drag through.

Li Yi continued to swim forward until the surroundings began to grow dark. After finding a coral reef that did not spawn any monsters, Li Yi hid within it and logged off.

Although Li Yi had a plan to make it through the Spirit Fishes’ territory. For insurance’s sake, he decided to wait until his resurrection counts had reset before attempting again.

The next day, upon logging in, Li Yi produced a slightly exceptional Epic-level equipment from his Space Pearl. It was a Purple Quality Bow, and it served to provide Li Yi with greater survivability.

“Come out, Ghost Crab!”

Li Yi waved his hand, and his Ghost Crab appeared under his feet.

“Lead the way.”

Li Yi gave the order to the Ghost Crab.

The Ghost Crab charged right into the Spirit Fishes’ territory while baring its two giant pincers.

Snap! Snap!

After traversing around a dozen meters, ten or so Spirit Fishes appeared beside it and instantly decimated the Ghost Crab.

The instant his Ghost Crab died, Li Yi used Pseudocide and successfully fled from combat!

Then, Li Yi stood back up and sent a green orb towards his pet to revive his Ghost Crab.

“Onwards!”

Li Yi pointed ahead, and the brave Ghost Crab once again charged into the Spirit Fishes’ domain…

This time, the Ghost Crab made it twenty meters before it was decimated by a school of Spirit Fishes.

Again, Li Yi Pseudocided to flee from battle. Following that, he revived his pet.

Li Yi’s plan for making it through the Spirit Fishes’ domain was pretty simple. He used his Ghost Crab to scout the road ahead while he followed slowly behind…

“Onwards!”

The heartless owner ignored the Ghost Crab’s pleas as he ordered it to scout ahead, and once again, the pitiful Ghost Crab bravely voyaged ahead…

…