Chapter 15: The End Of The Black Sky

He found other interesting information regarding the Black Sky. One of the things he discovered was the fact that a magical crystal would appear in the same area the phenomenon occurred, and this crystal is the key to stopping the Black Sky. One must destroy it. Otherwise, more monsters would continue to appear as long as this phenomenon is still "activated".

And these monsters would give no exp to the player who killed them or drop any items or skills. 

'So, that means…' Ling Yi put his phone back into his pocket and touched his chin, thinking, 'The players should look for magic crystals.'

He looked out of the window and saw black cloud-like smokes of different sizes appear out of thin air under the bright street lamp.

A few seconds later, the black smoke dispersed, and all kinds of monsters appeared.

He saw a tiger made of flames, a golden eagle with two pairs of steel wings, a watery monster that looked poisonous, and a strange round monster that jumped around the…

'Wait a minute. Isn't that…?'

Ling Yi recognized those monsters. It was the Red Fruit monsters he killed last night.

They were like giant red apples, jumping around aimlessly on the streets.

'It seems that the demons in the main world behave the same as those on God's Path.'

Monsters attacked people on sight but wandered around when they didn't see them.

And according to the information he had just read, the monsters in the main world would not attack buildings unless they saw people in them. 

'It's much safer to hide indoors.' Ling Yi thought.

Suddenly, he felt a loud rumble on the ground, seemingly due to some vibrations coming from the distance. 

Boom! 

Boom!

The sound came from hundreds of meters away, but he could feel the ground shaking.

He leaned close to the window and looked for what might have been the cause of it. Then his eyes caught it. He saw a massive creature about sixty to seventy meters tall walking in the dark City.

Boom! 

Boom!

The ground shook every time the giant beast took another step.

'What? Is that also a monster?' Ling Yi suddenly realized that he had misunderstood something. 

From the start, he had always assumed monsters were these small creatures he would have to kill. But he had forgotten that he only saw those monsters through the lens of his gaming screen in his previous life. 

It just hit him now how big they were in real life.

And this was a world where monsters existed in reality, so there was no such thing as 'screen restriction'.

So, it shouldn't surprise him how horrifyingly giant these monsters can be, but here he is.

Boom! 

Boom!

The giant beast took another step. The step on the ground was like a stomp on everyone's heart, making them all tremble in fear.

However, what made Ling Yi and the other people in the restaurant happy was that the giant beast wasn't heading toward Star Square.

Instead, it was heading north, towards the town center.

"Huaa~" Ling Yi let out a sigh of relief.

When he retracted his gaze from the window, he noticed his forehead was already covered in sweat.

The restaurant was still very dark, but now his eyes had gotten used to it, and he could see the girl sitting opposite him in the corner, covering her ears with her hands.

Ling Yi felt slightly relieved that he was a player. Even though he was still considered a newbie, he had some skills to defend himself, making him relatively calmer. He couldn't imagine the level of fear non-players feel in this situation.

Feeling thirsty and slightly distracted, he picked up a glass of water on the table and gulped it down. 

All of a sudden, something was nudging him in the back of his mind. 

Like a feeling telling him that something was wrong.

"Wait…" He unconsciously mumbled.

'Since I just saw a Red Fruit monster, this should be a level 3 Black Sky. And that means the monsters should range between Level 1 and 30.'

Ling Yi paused for a moment.

'Does that mean the giant beast is somewhere below level 30?'

It was a little odd. No matter how much he thought about it, it was not normal for a monster of that size to be only a level 20 or 30 creature.

'There is the possibility that it's a Boss...'

Ling Yi pulled up his phone to find some explanations and found that Elite and even Boss monsters would sometimes appear during the Black Sky phenomenon. 

The worst-case scenario would be the appearance of a Beast King!

However, the information stated that heavenly phenomena often accompanied the appearance of a Beast King. This made Ling Yi's tensed-up nerves relax.

This should only be a level 3 Black Sky. Although he doesn't know how large the area is, the Firefly branch should have enough combat power to deal with it.

He had heard that many players were part of the Firefly branch, and most were around level 30 or 40.

The highest level among them seemed to be around level 60 or 70.

This was just a level 3 Black Sky, so it should not be a problem for them.

Then, a sudden movement from the window caught his eye. As he turned to look, he found many people gathered on the grounds below.

Men appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, under the colorful neon lights on the street as if they had teleported. They used some mysterious power to control knives to attack. 

A woman also flew in the air with flames all over their body and wielded fire to attack. Some individuals transformed into beasts under the streetlights and engaged other creatures in a melee battle.

They were obviously players.

All sorts of strange skills appeared, and everyone seemed to have their specialty.

Ling Yi observed them carefully and realized that some were fighting alone while others were in groups of two or three. They didn't even greet each other when they met, as if they didn't know each other.

The relationship between players in the main world wasn't as close as he had assumed.

He turned his attention back to the battle.

He found that the monsters were no match for the players, and they were almost all killed instantly.

Only a few monsters could hold on for a while.

However, he couldn't last more than half a minute.

"It seems like this Black Sky battle will end soon."

He looked at the time and saw that it was half past one. He further estimated, "I should be able to go back around two."

...

Ling Yi underestimated their strength.

It only took about fifteen minutes for the Black Sky to end.

In the blink of an eye, the environment returned to normal.

The sunlight shone through the window and onto the clean tiles, reflecting the warm yellow light on the restaurant's ceiling. The entire room suddenly became warm and bright again.

Some customers cheered as if they had just survived a disaster. Some walked out in a hurry, as if they couldn't hold it anymore. Some looked calm as if they had expected this situation.

"Our Firefly Town is the strongest in the world. It's just a level 3 Black Sky. There's no need to worry." A young man with a pale face and a green mushroom head spoke to the celebratory crowd, "Even if a monster does break in, I can defeat it and protect you all since I am a level 7 player,"

When the surrounding people heard this, they cursed him in their hearts, but most were still polite and indulged him by giving the man a "surprised" expression.

While others genuinely wanted to get to know the green-haired player.

"Oh? You're a player? Let's be friends, let's be friends."

"Not bad, man. I have high hopes for you."

"Just by looking at him, I can tell he has potential."

However, there seemed to be more people who immediately disliked the guy. Some even stood up and just left.

Ling Yi overheard some of them speaking about the guy from afar and looked over curiously. But his ear caught onto an exciting conversation just beside his table.

"God's Path only opened yesterday in June, so he's obviously a player who entered last month. Only to reach Level 7 in a month? What kind of potential does he have?" One of them whispered.

"Usually, the faster players could reach level 10 within fifteen days. Even the slower players could do it in less than a month. This guy still dares to brag about his level out loud. He really has no shame."