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I really wasn’t careful enough, how could I have not thought of this?

Outsmarted by a beast, Chen Qing felt a mixture of emotions in his heart.

"Your Majesty, are you talking about... the giant python outside?" Shen Qi looked at Chen Qing in surprise. He had considered many possibilities, but he had never thought that the cause of everything happening in the city would be the giant python outside.

"Was it also the one that I felt could devour me at any moment?"

"Oh, that... no," Chen Qing shook his head. "It’s just that, because of it, this thing showed up."

"Your Majesty, can you tell me roughly what that thing is?" Shen Qi said with a wry smile. "I always feel that if something happens, I should at least know how I died..."

Upon hearing this, Chen Qing fell silent for a moment; it was a little difficult to explain, especially since he couldn’t name it.

"You have followed me for so long, you should know that those ancient powers have been laying out their plans for a long time, including the Third Son of Duke Wei’s family, who started his schemes twenty years ago. But why so low-key? Why didn’t he dare to use any extraordinary power?"

"Huh?" Shen Qi looked at Chen Qing, hesitated for a moment, and said, "Is it that he can’t use it?"

In his view, those hidden by the ancient powers likely maintained a low profile because they hadn’t recovered their strength yet, right? Like Dragon Mother in the Capital City, wasn’t she always hidden behind the Emperor at the beginning?

"They can use it..." Chen Qing smiled. "During the Dragon Palace incident, the divine fire in the Dragon Palace and various otherworldly abilities, weren’t there people using them?"

Now Shen Qi realized, right, it was said that the Princess Royale died at the hands of some extraordinary power from King of Qin’s son, a power that came from the Otherworldly Demon Statues; since ordinary people could wield extraordinary power, how could those originally transcendent entities not have some channel to use their power?

"Because they can’t use it often..." Chen Qing sighed. "There’s a rule in this world: some powers, if their time has not yet come, they can’t appear frequently. Otherwise, the world will automatically initiate a correction, and something will appear... to annihilate these anomalies."

"Not yet time?" Shen Qi hesitated and then said, "Does that mean that this city has possessed too much extraordinary power too early, so it has attracted some kind of monster?"

"You can understand it that way..." Chen Qing smiled.

According to the ancients’ understanding, this was already the closest to the truth.

As for the real truth, if told, the people here might truly not understand...

The fact was, there was a bug, and the system automatically corrected it!

After roughly understanding the situation, Chen Qing knew what that thing was; it was a program they used for temporary bug-fixing back then...

The Demonic World game, being a fully intelligent game, didn’t actually accommodate a large number of players per server.

Too many players would affect the overall experience, so to continue introducing new players, new servers had to be opened constantly, making it a boutique game with only tens of thousands of players per server.

While you can control the number of people in a server, you can’t control the desire of old players to play in new servers. After all, many people, having had a rough time in old servers, wanted to start over, and the game company couldn’t just stifle that, could they?

Old players knew the plot, knew the levels, it was as if they knew some of the future; because the game was highly intelligent, it would seem too rigid to outright prevent players from unlocking the powers of later versions in advance, nor would it highlight the advantages of veteran players.

So... they set up a program back then.

If a server experienced an excessive appearance of powers from later versions that should not yet be present, it would trigger a type of balance-restoring demon, targeting those who prematurely used powers from later versions.

And at the start of the second version, the monster responsible for this duty was called Spirit Ghost!

If a place used too much transcendent force too frequently, these Spirit Ghosts would appear, marking those who used the extraordinary power, devouring them one by one, until they could no longer detect the existence of beings with extraordinary powers, and only then would they leave.

"And that giant python outside?" Shen Qi couldn’t help frowning. "Why is it unaffected?"

According to Chen Qing, the monster only targeted extraordinary forces, so wasn’t that giant python a classic example of the transcendent?

"This thing... targets only the Human Race..." Chen Qing said with a bitter smile.

Naturally, it couldn’t target demons, since this world is a game designed to challenge players with the difficulty of demons. If it could affect demons, players would exploit a bug and use it to kill many demons, which would be unacceptable.

But now, whether it targets demons or not, he couldn’t say for sure; after all, the initial program design actually targeted players primarily, with the Human Race as an afterthought.

The concern was that players might use the power of the Human Race to inherit extraordinary power and help themselves, so they decided to target the Human Race too.

But in reality, it was the players who were targeted the most. So, the question arises: if it targets players, then players who have become demons, like Ali, might also be targeted.

This made Chen Qing extremely worried about the safety of Ali and others. Ali’s talent was extremely important; if she were eaten by a Spirit Ghost... It’d be anyone’s guess when they could find her again...

"Targets only the Human Race?" Shen Qi clenched his fists, unable to help saying, "This world has been against the Human Race from the start. Why is that?"

Chen Qing’s gaze drifted and he did not respond.

Rubbish, if it didn’t target you all, how would he make a living?

It took a long while for Shen Qi to calm down and continue, "His Majesty mentioned that the giant python outside deceived you. Does that mean all of this is its scheme?"

"It should be..." Chen Qing sighed.

The giant python was probably not a player; no player would choose the path of a venomous python, not only because of its low potential but also because it was easily targeted. But how did it know about this program?

Creating this program wasn’t just about having many people with extraordinary power; it also required continuous and frequent use. Only with enough quantity and frequency could it lure a Spirit Ghost from the Path of Yin and Yang...

The major guilds should know about this thing, so in theory, they should be restrained and not lure Spirit Ghosts, which means there’s only one possibility: they’re trapped here and can’t leave, yet they must use extraordinary forces!

The only one capable of all this is that dark-hearted big guy outside.

It is Mother Poison. This kind of large-scale blockade that prevents people from leaving is her forte. Just surrounding the city with poison would suffice.

The people from the major guilds must have extraordinary artifacts to protect themselves, and they might even hold their own against Mother Poison in a direct confrontation. But once they enter this city, it’s a different story.

If she can use poison to besiege the city, would you dare use extraordinary power to break out?

If you use it, you’ll be eaten by the Spirit Ghost. If you don’t, you can’t leave!

"Then... wouldn’t not using it solve the problem?" After Chen Qing roughly explained the situation, Shen Qi thought for a moment before hurriedly saying, "That monster should only identify people by their power, right? If a person never uses their extraordinary power, won’t they never be targeted?"

"Yes..." Chen Qing nodded, "If you have traces of having used it before, it will mark you and track you, testing you in various ways. Once you can’t resist using it, it will eat you. If you haven’t been marked from the start and under suspicion, then the likelihood of surviving is actually quite high. "

"Then why are there so many skeletons in the secret chamber?" Shen Qi frowned, "Haven’t they figured out the reason yet?"

"Most likely they have, or they wouldn’t have hidden away." Chen Qing shook his head with a bitter smile. "But unfortunately, they can’t afford not to use it..."

"Why not?"

"Because of that giant python outside...

" Chen Qing looked into the distance at the city wall, where the creature that circled the entire mountain range still rested with closed eyes, and said solemnly, "Mother Poison is skilled in the art of poison; she could easily evolve a toxin specifically targeting high-energy objects. Take a look at your arm."

Shen Qi was startled, hurriedly pulling up his sleeve, and was immediately stunned. At some point, his arm had become covered in black spots!

"This is a deadlock!" Chen Qing gritted his teeth, "This toxin isn’t hard to deal with; extraordinary power could force it out..."

Shen Qi quickly understood why Chen Qing said it was a deadlock. Trapped with no way out and poisoned, the poison can only be resolved with extraordinary power, but once used, the extraordinary power would get you eaten...

If this isn’t a deadlock, what is?