Genius Chapter 112: Tasks and Subjugation

Chapter 112: Tasks and Subjugation

Translated by Karai of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: Addis

On the night in the fishing village, there was less than half an hour left until midnight. ChatMasterWu, not understanding fully, saw ZenSlasher go in and asked, “Should I go in too?”

“You stay outside,” Su Mo replied, holding the Illumination Scroll and thoroughly illuminating the situation inside the cave. Under the scroll’s light, the markings on the walls were clearly visible, with layers of green and gray, varying in depth.

After ZenSlasher entered, he asked, “Did you find anything?”

“This cave should be close to the outside sea level, possibly affected by the tides, causing fluctuations in the water level inside,” Su Mo explained as he walked and illuminated, “Do you see the markings on the wall?”

ZenSlasher’s gaze fell on the wall, noticing faint traces on the mountain wall.

“The color of the mountain wall soaked by seawater differed from the part untouched by seawater, with a clear line indicating a path leading to the cave entrance recently blocked by stones,” Su Mo continued, “Even if the stones block it covertly, a small amount of seawater can still seep through the cracks and enter the bone cave. What does this imply?”

ZenSlasher realized, “Some of the people close to this area had a chance to come into contact with seawater.”

She immediately understood Su Mo’s meaning. With so many piles of bones stacked here, unless they moved all the bones away, it would be difficult to investigate what was underneath. However, the deliberately blocked entrance clearly prevented later arrivals from having a chance to touch seawater.

Su Mo asked, “Do you have any bottled items?”

ZenSlasher rummaged through the item bag, “Yes, I have some. I’ll try using them.”

At the top of the cave, ScarletFruit and the others waiting were completely puzzled. As they waited, they saw Momo and the others climb up along the rope, holding a bottled item in their hands.

Lying on the ground, a few of them moved their eyes and caught sight of what Su Mo was holding. Before they could say anything, they heard the summoner’s concise command, “Fruit, pry open their mouths.”

Apple, “?”

ScarletFruit immediately complied, “Bro, where did you get this stuff?”

Su Mo, “Seawater, let’s give it a try.”

In the holographic game Global, almost everyone possessed swimming skills, and drowning situations were extremely rare, let alone being forcibly made to open their mouths and have seawater poured in. ClearWind had never experienced anything like this in his life, and he choked uncomfortably.

ClearWind recovered after a moment, “Will this work? I won’t develop any other problems, right?”

“Well, in this situation, it’s better than having no cure,” ScarletFruit said, “ZenSlasher, do you have more? ClearWind says he wants another bottle.”

ClearWind, “???”

After drinking the seawater, the three of them were uncomfortable for quite a while. Suddenly, ClearWind found that he had strength in his hand, “It really seems to work, I can move my hand.”

Apple asked, “Why can’t I?”

“It must be that we didn’t drink enough. Wait a moment, I’ll go down and get some more,” ScarletFruit, gathering his courage, climbed down the rope. As soon as he got down, he fell into a pile of human bones, so he had to struggle to the stone wall and slowly move toward the cave entrance where Momo was.

Inside the cave, Momo was still observing other things. He simply filled the container with water and started to walk out. Just as he grabbed the rope, he heard a loud noise from above. Immediately after, a huge tentacle smashed a hole in the high part of the cave and reached in, stirring around.

Thunder rumbled through the broken walls, and danger erupted instantly.

ScarletFruit took a direct hit, crashing into the wall and falling into a heap of bones. “Damn! How did this thing still manage to get in from above?” Su Mo heard the commotion and rushed out. Upon seeing the situation, he hesitated for a moment and immediately summoned two summoned beasts to assist ScarletFruit.

However, the tentacle was clearly targeting them. A sweeping motion swept several immobile individuals from above directly into the pile of bones. ClearWind, who had just regained his strength and was not yet stable, suffered a heavy blow and crashed in, unable to get back up.

“ZenSlasher, ChatMasterWu, find people and bring them here,” Su Mo ordered. He kicked away several bones obstructing the entrance of the cave, clearing a path for them. He controlled the summoned beasts to continuously restrain the tentacle, buying time for his teammates.

The cave of bones was vast, and it took considerable time to locate and bring people back, especially swimming through this sea of bones to reach the entrance.

ScarletFruit was closer to Apple. He dragged the person and grabbed the stone wall to move forward. “Damn! This thing hurts like hell when it hits!”

The tentacle reaching in from above clearly damaged the cave wall. Su Mo looked up and noticed that the high point was actually only lightly covered, easily pushed open by the tentacle. It was evident that this large creature was targeting them, tracking their scent all the way here. Its attacks were on a completely different level from the sea monster’s; a single sweep almost took away 30% of their health.

Su Mo decisively summoned a bear, which provided a foothold for the teammates in the sea of bones. “Come over here, quickly!”

ChatMasterWu grabbed one person in each hand and ran forward.

“ChatMasterWu, this is the first time I’ve seen you being so brave,” ClearWind said emotionally. “From now on, I admit you’re a more newbie assassin than Watermelon.”

ChatMasterWu replied, “…Thanks. I guess I’m more of a newbie than him anyway.”

ZenSlasher followed beside him, using skills to clear obstacles. “The bear doesn’t have much health left. Let’s move quickly.”

ClearWind turned his head to ZenSlasher. “ZenSlasher, you’re amazing too.”

Under the cover of the summoned beasts, the group of four managed to tumble into the cave just as the tentacle attacked from above. Losing its target immediately, the tentacle went berserk inside the cave. Su Mo dragged everyone deeper into the cave, near a pool of seawater, and decided to leave them soaking by the side.

With this brief respite, ScarletFruit finally had time to tend to the others. The seven-person group was in a sorry state, with everyone except Momo severely injured. If they were to engage directly with the tentacle, they wouldn’t last long before being wiped out completely.

“Is this the boss? We can’t even scratch it,” ScarletFruit said. “I just got swiped by it and felt like I was being electrocuted.”

“It seems like it’s not moving anymore,” ZenSlasher observed.

“The nighttime is over,” Su Mo pointed to the quest log, where the countdown for darkness had reset to daylight.

[Daytime Duration 01:59:02]

[[East Sea Fishing Village] Seems to have returned to calm.]

“Where are you going, bro?” ScarletFruit asked hesitantly.

“I’m going out to take a look.”

Su Mo agilely emerged from the high point of the cave entrance. As soon as he stepped out, he saw the tentacle inside the cave motionless. Witnessing this, he became even more convinced of his suspicions. At that moment, he suddenly received a series of “ding-ding-ding” email notifications, all from Yu Zhen.

He had just replied when a private voice chat popped up from Yu Zhen.

“Are you okay?”

Su Mo answered the call and heard Yu Zhen’s low voice.

“It’s been only 2 hours since we last talked.” Hearing his voice again, Su Mo felt as if a weight had been lifted from his heart. “We’re fine here, relatively safe.”

“How’s the situation over there? At sea…”

Yu Zhen interrupted, “No problems at sea. The issue now is the Global Boss.”

The communication through friend emails and external chat had resumed, but the internal team voice chat was still down. Su Mo and Yu Zhen exchanged information from both sides to fully understand the current situation of this quest.

Global Boss was related to their 5-star quest mission in the East Sea Fishing Village. After releasing the Global Boss, it had a significant impact on the game map outside the scene. The difficulty of the new Global Boss, Lord of the Deep Sea, was incomparable to other Global Bosses of Celestial Horizon before. After more than an hour of fighting, its health had only decreased by 5%. Moreover, after arriving at the Fruit Gang’s stronghold, Lord of the Deep Sea began to seize the remaining resources. These resources not only restored its health but also strengthened its combat power.

“The Fruit Gang’s stronghold was stolen?” Su Mo exclaimed.

Yu Zhen explained, “Only a little is left. Most of it has already been moved, and there haven’t been any major issues.”

Lord of the Deep Sea’s formidable strength lay in its complex skill mechanics and exceptionally high defense, coupled with its ability to enhance its combat effectiveness through plundering resources. All players across the server received the quest [Conquer the Lord of the Deep Sea] and gathered more and more in the East Sea Fishing Village. However, the difficulty of the boss did not decrease.

Besides that, after comparing notes with Yu Zhen, he was able to summarize several key points:

1. The rotation between night and day lasts for 2 hours. During nighttime in their fishing village, local monsters and the Global Boss outside become more aggressive. During daytime, their area returns to calmness while the Global Boss outside remains motionless, with extremely high defenses.
2. The side quest “Honey-roasted Goose” is actually a prerequisite for the East Sea area boss mission. Completing this quest should provide them with relevant information, facilitating all server players in their conquest of the Global Boss.

In essence, their task completion yields information about the Lord of the Deep Sea or methods to penetrate its defenses. This is no longer just a simple quest task but a server-wide mission. From the beginning of the branching tasks, the mainframe likely intended for the task group to collaborate with the conquest group. Moreover, this quest is not the only one; until it’s first conquered, external players can also trigger entry into the quest task scene by completing side quests.

In conclusion, this quest task needs to be cleared first before the external boss becomes easier.

Yu Zhen replied, “The prerequisite tasks… It’s highly likely that you’ve entered a certain phase early, skipping some of the storyline to trigger the boss ahead of schedule.”

Su Mo paused at his words. “Then we should return to the starting point of the scene, perhaps we’ve overlooked some parts of the storyline.”

“Probably,” Yu Zhen nodded. “After getting permission from Honey-roasted Goose, we’ve obtained a list of side quests, but we’re not sure about the sequence or any other order. It’s quite challenging. Several elite teams have already set out, and currently, you are the best hope for the shortest completion time.”

Upon hearing this, Su Mo had a strange speculation. “You said the boss raided the resource point and then stopped? It directly intruded into the safe zone?”

“Yes,” Yu Zhen pondered briefly, then continued, “The East Sea outpost produces a variety of resource materials. We’re not sure what attracted it, but the materials inside the outpost have been completely swept clean for now.”

Su Mo frowned slightly. “If I remember correctly, isn’t East Sea Village not far from Sunset City?”

“Yeah, it’s quite close. It takes about two to three minutes by teleportation. The boss can’t use teleportation, so if it moves there and players block it, it’ll probably take an hour or more,” Yu Zhen explained.

Su Mo nodded twice. “It might enter Sunset City.”

He then asked, “How’s the boss?”

“Completely motionless, with extremely high defense. We can barely chip away its health. We couldn’t get close before; melee attacks are useless. Its tentacles inflict a numbing effect on those they hit,” Yu Zhen replied.

“Numbing?” Su Mo glanced around the cave. “Hey, what if you try pushing it into the sea? It might work wonders.”

Yu Zhen glanced around at the players still fighting monsters nearby when he heard this. He then said, “Time is almost up. Daytime lasts two hours, right?”

Su Mo checked the time. “Yeah… I’ll probably log off soon. Progress here isn’t going as fast.”

Suddenly, he remembered something. “Hey, why don’t you log into my account later and take a look?”

Upon hearing the slightly excited voice on the call, Yu Zhen couldn’t help but agree, “Sure.”

Inside the bone cave, the three people soaking in the seawater bath gradually regained consciousness.

ScarletFruit peeked out from the cave entrance and saw his brother standing motionless in a certain spot outside. He quietly asked ZenSlasher, “What’s my brother doing? Why isn’t he moving?”

“The friend mails are back. I just received some messages from outside,” ZenSlasher replied after a moment of thought. “He’s probably chatting with someone outside?”

ChatMasterWu was also curious. “Who’s he chatting with? It’s been twenty minutes.”

Upon hearing this, ScarletFruit glanced at ChatMasterWu. “Who else could it be? Definitely my Brother Wanderer.”

“What?” ClearWind leaned against the wall, gradually regaining his senses. “Is my brother chatting people up?”

“…” Small Bear Biscuit remained silent.

Apple sighed, “Beauty really captivates, huh?”

“Are you done chatting? Can you move yet? Assassin, come out with me to check for clues. I’ll log off for a meal soon,” Su Mo switched to the team channel, noticing Apple and Little Bear still by the seawater pool. He briefly updated them on the situation outside, leaving everyone surprised. They hadn’t expected the Global Boss outside to be related to them.

“Brother, you should go eat earlier while it’s still daytime,” ScarletFruit suggested.

“Yeah, yeah, finish your meal quickly and come back to protect us,” ClearWind added.

“…It’s not mealtime yet,” Su Mo replied.

“We can eat early,” ScarletFruit insisted.

“Wait… Boss,” Apple finally realized, “Did they steal all our resources?”

“No, I heard there’s still a bit left,” Su Mo replied casually, “After they finish with your base, they’ll probably head towards Sunset City.”

“Why Sunset City?”

Su Mo explained, “Sunset CityVicinity has other guild bases, and Sunset City itself has plenty of resources. We’ve already sent messages in the Global Channel, telling players inside to withdraw their resources.”

“Oh damn!? Sunset City… Wait… I have over a dozen vending alt accounts AFK there!!”

In the East Sea Fishing Village, the Lord of the Deep Sea resting on the mountain stopped moving, while a group of players were attacking on the way up.

Yu Zhen ended the voice chat with Su Mo and explained the situation to CloudTraveller and others, “We probably have to wait for their progress inside. Our only option is to figure out how to intercept.”

“So, how do we deal with this boss?” CloudTraveller asked.

Yu Zhen glanced at the distance between the sea and their position, “Then let’s try the method Momo suggested.”

Outside the East Sea base, the elite squads had depleted their mana reserves. The giant octopus’s health hasn’t budged at all, despite the multitude of players present. They simply couldn’t make a dent in the boss when it was stationary; it seemed impervious like a fortress. The leaders of several elite squads gathered together, with temporary truces between guilds. There was no more infighting; everyone was pooling their efforts to find a solution.

Just then, a message came from the frontline management team—

“The leaders want a solution to toss this monster back into the sea.”

Author’s note: 

Bitter Melon: What’s going on, new activity? 

Watermelon, currently battling on the frontline: ? 

Bitter Melon: Moving the boss!