novelraw Chapter 353: A-Rank Rift, World Catastrophe, Coffin of the Sea!
Chapter 353: A-Rank Rift, World Catastrophe, Coffin of the Sea!
"Everyone, survive!"
Palu raised his right arm to shield against the wind and shouted loudly.
This was their Ice Demon Pirates' first attempt to challenge and clear an A-rank dimensional rift! And they were trying to delve deep into the rift to meet the Ice Witch!
The entire Ice Demon Pirates' ten years of glory and victories were all riding on this rift expedition!
Boom! Icy, bone-chilling seawater covered their bodies.
On this vast, turbulent sea, the sky was a depressing leaden gray, with thick clouds hanging low as if within reach, rolling and roaring, heralding the overlap and fusion of two worlds!
And they were already at the rift's boundary line!
Amid the endless howling, Chen Qi's eyes calmly displayed a bright red notification!
[Rift Name: Great Sea Coffin
Rank: ADescription: In a former world, a princess from a fallen kingdom came to the Fringe World seeking power, pleading with a prophet for boundless strength.
Moved by the princess's tragic circumstances, the prophet gave her a small blade.
With this blade, the princess cut a tiny rift between worlds.
The slight power from this small rift granted her the ability to freeze others. Relying on this power, she defeated a fourth-tier chieftain while only at third-tier herself!
However, against the fifth-tier general who commanded the kingdom's army and wantonly insulted her mother, she was helpless.
So she took the blade again and cut the rift wider. This time, her body ignited with blue flames, gaining the power to slow time.
Using this time-slowing ability, she defeated the fifth-tier war lord general while only at legendary tier!
But soon, the empire's army invaded, and a demigod delivered a destructive oracle...
The princess sought ever greater power, cutting the rift open again and again until eventually, the rift grew larger and larger.
For even more immense power, she began forging more blades, attempting to have all the kingdom's warriors cut open that rift and master the freezing power of ice-sealed time!
Finally, alongside the rise of an empire, the death of a demigod, and the arrival of an emperor, she split the entire sky, carving open a world rift!
That day, floods from the Fringe World submerged everything, the world was divided into countless islands, cold ruled the entire world, and the whole world became a glacial sea!
Overnight, the world was destroyed.
Food mutated, humans went mad, the sky's dazzling light contained deadly poison, seawater and cold eroded everything.
Hunger, war, death!
Whether it was the steam nation built in the sky, the war-seeking empire, or the forest kingdom using ten-thousand-meter giant trees as walls, all became silent corners of the sea.
In the boundless cold, people killed and cannibalized each other just to survive one more day.
In this world, humanity's only food sources were the sea beasts living in the ocean depths and the worms hiding in darkness with rotting pustules.
Whether it was the arrogant demigods sitting on thrones dominating order, the saints ruling multiple tribes, the fourth-tier transcendents indulging in pleasure, or the common folk with nothing—all would be buried in the endless sea, dying from cold and hunger.
Within one month, the human population dropped by 99%, and the entire world instantly became a great sea coffin.
Rift Rank Restriction: None (Whether completely destitute individuals or saints fleeing death's pursuit, all can enter this rift.)
Rift Participant Limit: None]
No participant limit, no rank restrictions for an A-rank rift... Amid the storm, a flicker of excitement passed through Chen Qi's eyes.
From developing on the Blackfin Crew's pirate ship until now, he had finally reached an A-rank rift!
If E-rank rifts were small spaces where you'd reach the boundary with slight exploration,
Then A-rank rifts were collapsed continents, broken worlds.
Simultaneously, the transcendent resources in A-rank rifts far exceeded ordinary imagination.
If one could successfully contain an A-rank rift, it would be enough to establish a massive family within a kingdom!
Moonstone City's Magic Bullet Family became the city's leader precisely by relying on a damaged A-rank rift.
Of course, as an unrestricted rift, the Great Sea Coffin was almost impossible to contain.
Chen Qi rubbed his hands together, took a deep breath, and felt the icy cold wind.
Saints, angels, demigods...
These ranks beyond ordinary transcendents' reach, these ranks hidden throughout eras, all required contact with A-rank or higher rifts to possibly attain.
Therefore, A-rank rifts were also called by many novice players as where the game truly begins.
However, before the immense rewards, the difficulty of A-rank rifts far exceeded everyone's imagination, especially an A-rank rift with a mutation rate over 50%.
Among the many A-rank rifts, the Great Sea Coffin was already one of the easier ones.
Like the A-rank rift Magic Net connected to An—if spiritual energy was insufficient, just walking inside could crush someone to death under powerful spiritual pressure.
But even though relatively easier, the Great Sea Coffin remained extremely dangerous.
Chen Qi gazed into the distance.
The storm gradually dispersed, and their ship was already in a completely new domain.
In the sky, a dazzling white sun hung directly overhead.
As far as the eye could see, everything was desolate, with only massive glaciers and sea visible, while the temperature had reached a shocking negative thirty degrees Celsius—no different from bathing naked in ice water.
On the ship, everyone instinctively lit fires for warmth.
"Achoo!"
Fen sneezed heavily, looked ahead, and quietly said:
"This is where teacher sleeps."
"Your teacher certainly picks interesting places to sleep."
Chen Qi complained, then continued checking the Great Sea Coffin's other notifications.
[Affinities: Ice, Goblet, Void
Clear Condition: Survive over fifteen days. Each additional day lived doubles rewards, up to 1024 times.
After fifteen days, you can search for boundary points to leave the Great Sea Coffin.
Special Clear Condition: Reach the sanctuary built within the Great Sea Coffin—the Witch's Coffin—or other locations to find hidden exits.]
As expected, this was an apocalyptic survival world... Chen Qi thought to himself.
The longer you lived, the higher the rewards.
After fifteen days, each additional day survived doubled the rewards!
By the twentieth day, you could obtain an A-rank evaluation.
It sounded tempting, but actually, this was a potential trap. When you survived past fifteen days, you'd immediately gain an 'attract monster hordes' buff. Each passing day would bring exponentially more monsters attacking you!
By the twentieth day, you'd face over a hundred legendary-tier monsters daily, including various mechanic monsters and fifth-tier saint-level creatures.
Without saint-level strength, attempting to obtain an A-rank evaluation from an A-rank rift was suicidal.
"So hungry..."
At that moment, mechanic Burry hugged himself tightly and pulled an apple from his pocket.
"Don't eat cold things!"
Chen Qi sharply warned.
"Huh?"
Burry looked down at the apple in his hand.
Under the cold's influence, the apple in Burry's hand rapidly froze, turning into a cold ice sculpture.
And his hand touching the apple had already started freezing.
If not for his mechanical arm, his hand would have been ruined.
Chen Qi reminded:
"Any food dead for over an hour will kill you with one bite."
The Great Sea Coffin was one of the A-rank rifts Chen Qi was most familiar with in the Witch Sea.
Chen Qi took all the food from his Backpack Card and discarded it.
In the Great Sea Coffin, all edible food would rapidly undergo pathological changes, becoming inedible.
Simultaneously, this world's cold would rapidly drain a person's stamina by percentage.
Even goblet-affinity saints, as long as they had flesh-and-blood bodies, would inevitably feel hunger—unbearable hunger.
This world's normal plants had long been extinct.
Therefore, just as the Great Sea Coffin's background described, in this world, only sea beasts and food with rotting pustules were the sole edible sources.
Even with full preparation, starvation was still likely.
This was also why the Great Sea Coffin had exceptionally high difficulty compared to other rifts.
However, in this sea world, aside from rare personal forbidden techniques like 'full body mechanization', 'photosynthesis', 'austerity practices', and 'eating rocks', there were two extremely useful skills.
First, the legendary-tier merchant's exchange skill.
Exchange was an almost universal skill for fourth-tier shell-affinity professions.
Fourth-tier merchants could open shops to exchange soul currency for necessary food.
Unfortunately, most fourth-tier merchants couldn't specify shops filled with grains, and they had to ensure the exchanged food was 'fresh'.
Like Jin Li, as a mysterious merchant, her shop refreshed with all sorts of bizarre, useless strange items.
For group operations, the strongest support profession in the Great Sea Coffin was shell-heart affinity beast merchants, who could exchange for piglets through their shops and make delicious roasted suckling pigs in this glacial era.
Of course, most beast tamers were trainers who loved their pets and refused to participate in this rift, even establishing special pig protection guilds in the game.
Second, was the universal god-tier skill everyone could learn—
Fishing!
In this sea world, aside from those explosively powerful monsters, fish and small insects were the easiest food sources to obtain.
Therefore, fishing counted as an extremely useful god-tier skill.
Chen Qi continued checking the rift's other information.
[Rift Mutation Rate: 75% (High mutation rate, this rift's danger exceeds your imagination!)
Current Participants: 641 people
Inspiration Enlightenment: You see a young girl's corpse with hair half-white half-blue, lying flat in a bottomless coffin. Suddenly, she opens cold eyes and slowly opens her mouth, licking her lips.
You know she's hungry.
Inspiration Enlightenment (Special): You see black whale sails drifting on the sea.
Inspiration Enlightenment (Special, Lamp Affinity): You vaguely see yourself alone, being frantically chased by a monster burning with blue flames!]
This...
Chen Qi couldn't help but frown.
These three inspiration enlightenments were somewhat unexpected.
Among them, the first enlightenment's subject was likely their main destination—the Ice Witch inside the Witch's Coffin!
The Ice Witch licking her lips at me?
Could it be the Ice Witch wants to eat me?
No way... Chen Qi thought carefully—it should be because the Ice Witch had slept too long and was too hungry.
With Fen here, the probability of him being hunted as food by the Ice Witch was very low.
Second was the black whale sail prompt.
It seemed the Blackfin Crew had already reached the Great Sea Coffin and begun operations.
This rift had special notifications allowing real-time viewing of surviving 'humans'.
641 people—this number didn't include this world's various strange creatures, but specifically referred to recent rift adventurers.
Therefore, the Blackfin Crew participating in this rift should number around 600 people.
Among them, combat-capable should be about one hundred, while the others, while having some combat ability, were also likely the pirates' backup food sources.
In this rift, there was even a forbidden strategy of bringing large numbers of pets and humans as backup food supplies.
In the Great Sea Coffin, ordinary unintelligent pets easily mutated at night!
Therefore, you couldn't bring large numbers of animals to survive in this world either.
For higher-intelligence pets like water spirits, the mutation probability was extremely low, which was why Chen Qi didn't bring Coastal Apex Predators and only brought water spirits.
Chen Qi's eyes suddenly brightened.
The 641 number before his eyes rapidly dropped to 611!
This meant the Blackfin Crew's warship had likely encountered monsters in the Great Sea Coffin, instantly losing thirty people in a team wipe!
An unimaginable drop rate.
It seemed the Blackfin Crew had encountered a massive maritime disaster.
In A-rank rifts, you had to be careful everywhere... Chen Qi shook his head.
The third enlightenment, the monster burning with blue flames, should refer to the Azure Beast...
I'll be alone, chased by the Azure Beast?
Being chased by a fifth-tier monster?
Chen Qi imagined that scene and felt somewhat creeped out.
Under normal circumstances, with his experience, fishing skills, and Deep Sea Affinity, as long as he didn't deliberately seek death, surviving fifteen days wouldn't be difficult, and clearing the rift wouldn't be hard.
But because of his Flesh Cleaver Bone Breaker and Ember's Touch, he had already been marked by the Azure Beast.
Dealing with some sea monsters and snow beasts, he still had experience, but facing a fifth-tier evil beast with considerable intelligence would be much more troublesome.
For this operation, aside from facing cold, hunger, and the indescribable Azure Beast, they also had to constantly guard against the Blackfin Crew.
Extremely difficult apocalyptic survival game... Chen Qi collected his scattered thoughts and looked at everyone.
"So cold..."
Fen hugged herself tightly, trembling as she spoke.
Chen Qi glanced sideways and saw Fen looking at him with a hungry expression, her stomach making gurgling sounds.
Her eyes seemed to say "stomach, hungry."
Because of the Azure Beast's attack, the Ice Demon Pirates' prepared lambs had been reduced by more than half.
Their existing food couldn't even sustain them for one day.
Everyone's stamina was being rapidly consumed in this world!
Can't eat Chen Qi's soft rice... Fen shook her head, took out witch relics, and said:
"I can sense teacher's location is deep in this icy sea, requiring at least five days of travel."
Five days, round trip would be ten days!
And that was assuming no accidents occurred midway, no encounters with the Blackfin Crew, no encounters with the Azure Beast.
I have ample wilderness survival experience... Little Crow lit a torch and said:
"According to inspiration enlightenment, this rift's participant count has dropped by ten more people."
Ten people... Burry, consumed by hunger and cold, couldn't help but say something discouraging:
"Before we even reach the Witch's Coffin and confront the Blackfin Crew, we'll probably starve to death, right?"
After everyone reached the A-rank rift, instead of the expected excitement, they were instantly eroded by this world's cold!
Coupled with the recent Azure Beast's assault, everyone's morale had hit rock bottom.
Perhaps it's time for me to act... Chen Qi looked at everyone's dejected expressions and rubbed his nose:
"Let me first fish for everyone and prepare some travel rations."
Fishing was this world's most useful skill for obtaining food!
And his fishing skill was personally taught by Deep Sea Hunters!
Under everyone's expectant gazes, Chen Qi disembarked, walked onto the glacier, took out a fishing rod, and began fishing.
Soon, his fishing rod twitched slightly.
A bite!
Fishing really was a good skill after all.
Chen Qi thought to himself as he gently pulled the fishing rod.
This weight—it was a big fish!
"So fast..."
Little Crow swallowed hard, her heart pounding.
Everyone watching this scene trembled with excitement.
Hooked!
Chen Qi pulled the fishing rod sharply.
The next second, as the fish was hooked, the entire glacier he stood on began trembling along with it.