Pride Online

Chapter 230: The Awakened Emperor Part I

“What is going on?!”

After that, some harbingers started occurring in the surroundings unexpectedly. The clear bright sky was now grey and overclouded like a massive storm would come soon. The Light Ring got completely silent when the huge screens in the middle of it were cut off from the signal.

“The signals of all channels are gone. ...Da, what is happening exactly?”

Toei turned to the person beside him with an anxious face, and obviously, the man with rusty-colored eyes was frowning his eyebrows tightly.

“Something’s wrong.” He spoke to himself.

“Obviously. I just told you that the signal’s been cut off from every channel, and look!”

Toei pointed to the town below them before he saw that there was a dazzling light barrier covering Dores town thoroughly as if it appeared to seal something or someone.

“Isn’t that a district seal?” Toei yelled.

“It is,” Thada replied. “It’s also a high-ranked one that only the GMs are able to use.”

“Was it Anne?”

“No way.” The prudent one shook his head. “Anne would never do something inconsiderate like this without consulting with me first. So, I don’t think this is the GMs or players.”

“What are you implying?”

The older one asked with an anxious face. However, Thada did not say anything in reply. He just stood up and opened many information windows up. And his actions made the players shake their heads wearily as they started complaining, “Technical problems again.”

A massive load of information was passing the calm attractive face of the young GM quickly. Those rusty-colored eyes were rolling side to side as fast as a bullet. ...After a while, his pretty lips pressed together tightly with a slight curse.

“...Damn it! The firewall doesn’t detect anything.”

“Should we try contacting Anne in the field?” Toei suggested. But Thada shook his head at that.

“I can’t detect any signal in that district seal at all, let alone contact someone. Right now, it’s like Dores town and every player in it has been isolated from the game servers, Toei.”

“Crap.” The older one slipped out a curse. “...So, it means that,”

“Yes, they’ve got us now, the hackers.”

Toei turned pale right away. He caught eyes with Thada.

“But why is the signal on the Light Ring gone, too, when it’s only inside the town that’s been hacked and planted the district seal in it?”

“That’s because of the Jammer Effect. It’s what happens when the system’s hacked violently. And that area is not safe now, Toei. If a player dies while they’re in the Jammer Effect field, it will cause the rollback, or their brain waves will be stuck in the data server, and that will be a big problem.

“So, we should evacuate them out, huh,” Toei said understandingly.

“Yes, but we should do it slowly. Don’t make them panic. I’m going to try reaching the field. At least Ton is with Anne there. ...He’s one of our best programmers, and maybe he could do something.”

“Got it.”

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“What’s this? The electricity’s out when it’s about to rain or what?”

On another side, there came a joking grumbling complaint. Manoch was looking around and sensed that the circumstance was too unusual. Every function of the Light Ring seemed to be jammed. And the sky up there looked like there was a large storm coming.

“Ugh.”

A whine came out of those pink lips of Waree slightly, making Maysa turn to her.

“What’s wrong, Nam?”

“I’m not feeling so well.” Waree held her temples with an expression that did not look okay. “I suddenly got a headache. After the light appeared all over the town. I feel like...I want to vomit somehow.”

“You’re feeling sick?” Angie who was sitting next to her grabbed Waree’s arm with a concerned look in her eyes.

“Are you okay? They say that you should log out from the game when you feel dizzy. So, I think maybe you should leave here.”

“She’s right, Nam.” Angie agreed.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Waree denied. “It’s not like that, May. You don’t get it. This dizzy symptom it’s not because of the game connection, but it’s from...”

She paused there, pressing her lips tightly as she was looking at Dores town below her.

The light that was surrounding the town right now gave her a headache. ...But deep down, she knew that the light was not the cause of it. It was something that she had never sensed this strongly before. It was something that she felt so strangely familiar with, but it was also sad and frightening.

“Maybe it’s because the game system still gets askew right now. You might get better once the GMs fix it. Just hang in there a bit then.”

Maysa said while she was looking around. She was not feeling good about the situation right now either. But as she said, there should not be any serious problems here since all GMs and staff were here.

“So, we don’t know what’s going on down there either.” Manoch turned to speak with May.

“It should be alright,” she replied. “I think the GMs will fix the problem in a bit.”

“I’m worried about Na.”

“Why?” The listener raised her eyebrows, while she was holding Waree.

“A while ago when Na rushed in and touched the crystal successfully, I think I saw some light shining up before the live signal went down.”

“What kind of light?” Maysa frowned her eyebrows.

“We wouldn’t be worried like this if we knew.”

The sassy merchant retorted her quite annoyingly, before he leaned his back against the seat, looking like he was annoyed by the game system that suddenly got dysfunctional just like that!

“Everyone!”

It did not take long after that when Leonard hurriedly ran up the grandstand’s stairs with Lala carrying many items behind him.

“We’ve got a problem.”

The half-ghost NPC yelled with a drawling voice, drawing every eye at them, even though some players almost flipped their chairs when these two freaks ran past them.

"Woah, Leonard, what are those many things you bought? ...Oh, that’s a nice shirt. They could make the shirts that fast?!”

Tunwa spoke up right away. Maybe that was because of all the stuff the huge dog was carrying, or it was because of the large T-shirt that it was wearing, which could be about a 6XL size.

Moreover, the shirt also had the text “Let’s go, Wisana” and the face of that cocky man in the coolest angle printed on it as well.

“You mean this shirt, sir?” Leonard said delightedly. “Master bought plenty of them. The souvenir shops have made T-shirts out of every competitor in the final round already. And there’re many nice styles with Wisana’s images, so Master bought many of them to give to all of you.”

“Oh, that’s great.”

The dog wriggled its tail happily as he showed those shopping bags to everyone. However, Lala coughed out loudly, before gazing at Leonard, making its tail and ears drop.

“Is this the time for that, Leonard?” she asked with a drawling voice.

“My apologies, Miss Lala.”

“What’s going on, Lala? You two looked so freaked out just now.”

Waree asked them with a pale face. And hearing that, the NPC girl was back to being freaking out again.

“Has anyone seen Master? We lost him for such a long time. We were trying to find him, but we didn’t see him anywhere.”

After hearing her question, everyone looked at each other.

“We didn’t see him either,” Maysa said.

“Oh my, what should I do now? And things have got messed up when he’s not here also.”

Lala turned to catch eyes with Leonard, and it was too obvious to hide that anxiety on her face, and that made Maysa and Waree turn to look each other in the eyes as they started sensing chaos somehow.

“Do you have anything urgent, Lala?” Maysa asked.

The listener paused a little like she did not want to say anything about that. However, when she was facing a problem like this, she really could not keep it to herself anymore.

“Well, right now, I can detect the signal of some...”

BOOM!!!!

She did not finish the sentence, because there was an explosion coming from below them loudly, making everyone let out a sensation in unison. Moreover, the impact from the explosion could even shake the Light Ring that was floating many meters above the town. And that was evidence that the explosion just now was ...unusual!

“What was the bomb? Was it from the south where Wisana is right now?!” Maysa yelled.

“No, it was from the west side of town,” Manoch yelled back in reply.

Everyone looked at where the explosion occurred at the same time. A large group of smoke was floating up to the sky, and the tall buildings nearby were all destroyed.

“What the hell is happening there? Is there some kind of brutal monster showing up?” Manoch spoke with a shocked voice.

Meanwhile, Lala was staring at Leonard who was bulging its eyes out of shock now.

“This can’t be it!”

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