Heroes' Prison

Chapter 208 - 206: Address

Huang Huapeng walked all the way to the end of the red carpet, ascended the podium, turned his head to look around the venue, and saw the dense crowd of spectators, the star-like cameras, and spoke his first words to all of humanity, "Hello, everyone!" That moment, countless cameras recorded his expression and voice, turning them into a series of codes through processors, transmitting them to far off space satellites, and projecting them to every corner of the world.

These signals traveled through wildernesses, flew over every city, every village, every remote mountain outpost, and entered every kind of device, where they were transformed into sound and played through speakers. In an instant, Huang Huapeng’s greeting, "Hello, everyone," echoed around the world.

Afterwards, Huang Huapeng delivered his address to all of humanity:

"Many people have asked, if we already have a real world, why do we need The Second World? This is not a question but an answer. It is precisely because we only have one world that we need a second one.

years ago, the Era of Corporation created the Hope System, and that system has been continuously upgraded to become today’s The Second World. But no matter how we innovate this world, we will never forget its original name — Hope, which is the very meaning of The Second World’s existence.

We come from the vast expanse of the Stone Age, eating raw flesh and drinking blood, taking steps one by one to reach today’s civilized era. What has supported us humans is not great technology but rather something called hope, which encourages us to constantly explore unknown territories in search of a better tomorrow.

After the nuclear leak in the Pacific Ocean ten years ago, it was we who stepped forward to save the world. Since then, whenever people encounter danger, there always seems to be someone asking righteously why the Era of Corporation does not appear? Why does the Era of Corporation watch as the world is endangered? Faced with such questions, we often feel fear. It’s hard for me to imagine that the hope of humanity is in the hands of a company.

The Era of Corporation has always followed an inviolable tenet: not to interfere too much with this world. You might think that this tenet exists to prevent the power of the Era of Corporation from damaging the world, that humans would fear our strength. Actually, the opposite is true; it is we who fear. We are afraid that after saving this world, humanity would start to rely on our strength, thus extinguishing the hope within each person.

The most powerful entity in this world is not us, but rather all of you. Every single one of you has the power to change the world. Our hope is to see that when the world faces despair, there will be some among you brave enough to stand up and fight for this world, regardless of the knowledge that they might be imprisoned or even sacrifice their lives, they always fight unyieldingly towards their dreams, instead of placing hope in the Era of Corporation.

Disaster isn’t what is to be feared, it is the loss of hope in one’s heart that is terrifying. I know that each one of you has had some great dreams; it is just the power to awaken that is lacking, living numbly in the real world. To awaken the hope within your hearts, we have created The Second World.

The Second World is crueller than the real world; here, evil enemies torment living beings, yet there is no Era of Corporation to turn the tide. What exists here are all you Heaven-Sent Men. What this world becomes depends on what you want it to be. As long as you can awaken the hope within your hearts and are willing to fight for this world, then you can indeed build a beautiful world.

Perhaps someone will ask me what the hope of the Era of Corporation is. I can tell you —

When the day comes that humanity has forgotten the existence of the Era of Corporation, that is the future the Era of Corporation hopes for."

...

Huang Huapeng’s voice rang out in every corner of the world, in the ears of every person.

The entire world was silent for a long time.

After listening to this speech, Huang Yi came to understand the Era of Corporation a bit. With their methods, it was clearly very easy for them to find out there was a problem with the World Federation, but they did not take any action, evidently not wanting to interfere in this world, but rather hoping that the people of this world would change it themselves.

Regardless, his determination to overthrow the World Federation would not waver; to achieve this goal, he could resort to any means, commit the most heinous acts, become a demon reviled by everyone, willing to perish along with the World Federation.

After that, Huang Yi no longer paid attention to the opening ceremony and returned to The Second World to continue level grinding. What he wanted to see was this part of the speech from the Era of Corporation, to understand their stance.

...

Within Dragon Capital City, inside a nondescript house, Feng Zhi stood at the window, looking out at the empty streets. At this moment, almost all players were offline, having gone to watch the opening ceremony.

Right then, the door opened, and a man about 20 years old walked in, toying with a dagger coated with venom. He was none other than the assassin known as Wei Yangsheng. He glanced at Feng Zhi and said, "Feng Zhi, Qin Shiyu is online."

"Perfect timing! How many people are around her?" Feng Zhi asked without turning.

"Just her alone. Right now, there are basically no other players in Dragon City; they’ve all gone to watch the opening ceremony," Wei Yangsheng said with a wicked smile.

"Okay, go ahead and do it now. Nobody knows who did it, and even if they did, it wouldn’t matter. The whole world’s attention is on the annual grand festivity right now, no one will care about this," Feng Zhi nodded and said, "Also, remember to cast a Death’s Curse on her, preventing her from resurrecting for five days. Otherwise, our efforts will be meaningless."

"I’m on it!" Wei Yangsheng nodded, turned around, and left the room.

Wei Yangsheng arrived at a secluded garden, where two hundred assassins clad in tight-fitting gear stood in orderly ranks, all fixing their gazes on Wei Yangsheng.

Wei Yangsheng surveyed the crowd, twirled the dagger in his hand, and said, "Next, we’re going to assassinate Qin Shiyu. Remember, everyone must cover their faces, and be cautious in your approach. Qin Shiyu is very skilled and will definitely put up a fight. We have two hundred assassins here, and I hope that after the operation, at least a hundred will remain! Let’s go! Remember to use stealth as we get close to the target."

Immediately, Wei Yangsheng led the way in a different direction toward Dragon Capital City, while the two hundred assassins dispersed into various alleys, quickly heading toward the same target. The sunshine was brilliant, but the fast-moving silhouettes of the assassins carried with them an air of deadly chill.

The common residential building they were all headed for was the temporary abode of Qin Shiyu.

At this moment, Qin Shiyu stood on the balcony, looking in the direction of Xuanyuan Town, a faint sadness in her beautiful eyes.

She had long seen the message from Huang Yi on the forum, knowing that he had helped the Yanhuang Legion to secure the first kill of the Zombie King in Xuanyuan Town. Logically, Huang Yi would have come to Dragon Capital City to find her, but despite waiting for a long time, he hadn’t come.

"Brother Yi, we need you to come back," Qin Shiyu murmured to herself, as a gust of wind scattered her words into the silent expanses of Dragon Capital City.

"Whoosh!" Just at that moment, a sudden fearsome streak of light exploded in the air!

Following that, an assassin’s figure appeared out of nowhere, brandishing a dagger and ferociously stabbing toward the very close Qin Shiyu!

"Hmph!" There was no sign of panic in Qin Shiyu’s beautiful eyes. With a cold snort, she sidestepped the attack, quickly took out an axe, and chopped down at the assassin swiftly!

"Pfft!" The assassin’s body was cleaved into two, and the corpse instantly vanished into nothingness, signaling his reincarnation.

"Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!" Before Qin Shiyu could even retract her axe, five fierce glimmers of light shone again, blocking every escape route as five more assassins flashed into existence, enveloped in an aura of death as they all lunged toward her.

With no way to dodge, Qin Shiyu’s figure flickered, blinked to another spot, and slashed a bloody crescent moon glow toward the five assassins!

In the next instant, five assassins fell to the ground.

Almost simultaneously, ten more assassins materialized from thin air, rushing fearlessly toward Qin Shiyu.

...

In this way, Qin Shiyu barely had time to react. Every motion she completed left her with no chance to breathe before another wave of assassins emerged and attacked. Forced into a corner, she had to employ skill after skill, but as the fight dragged on, she had fewer and fewer skills left; all were in cooldown.

Soon, the ground became littered with a heap of bodies—there were well over a hundred. Yet Qin Shiyu also suffered grievous injuries, with dreadful wounds opening up all over her body.

"Whoosh!" Just then, an unusually sinister dagger glow aimed for her abdomen, the light green in color like a venomous snake, striking cunningly and viciously from amidst the crowd of assassins, almost impossible to defend against.

"Pfft!" The dagger pierced Qin Shiyu’s body, depleting her final Health Points. At the same time, the green venom on the dagger invaded her body. This venom was called Death’s Curse, preventing the target from resurrecting for five days.

Qin Shiyu fell rigidly, drawing a tragic arc through the air, her long hair helplessly fluttering. In her final moments of death, she was no longer her valiant self, revealing a vulnerability inherent to her femininity.

"Sigh! I didn’t expect it to take 125 lives to bring her down!" The owner of the green dagger was none other than Wei Yangsheng. He looked down at Qin Shiyu’s corpse and shook his head with a sigh.