Sterl had barely stepped into a civilian house when a system alert shed before his eyes.


    [You have entered the special zone: Vige of Death.]


    [Embrace this brutal pleasure!]


    Thetter message appeared in blood-red letters, unsettling him slightly.


    Sterl felt a slight tremble under his feet, and then... nothing happened.


    He wandered around the house for a bit, finding nothing of value—only seeing signs that no one had lived there for a long time.


    Pots and pans that had weathered the years were now so brittle they would crumble to dust upon touch.


    After confirming there was nothing to gain in the room, Sterl had no choice but to head back the way he came, pushing the door open to leave.


    However, as soon as he stepped out, Sterl found the scenery around him had drastically changed. He was now in the center of a cluster of civilian houses, surrounded by buildings and streets swirling with yellow sand.


    Looking far into the distance, Sterl realized he would have to traverse several kilometers to leave. Without hesitation, he took out the quest scroll he had obtained earlier and chose to use it.


    Immediately, a new quest appeared in Sterl''s quest log: [Death ughter].


    [Death ughter]


    [Type: Repeatable Quest]


    [Description: Kill 200 units of enemies in the Vige of Death to receive a trophy orb as a reward.]


    [Note: This quest can bepleted up to ten times, with an extra reward appearing upon fullpletion.]


    [Time Limit: 10 hours.]


    "2000 monsters in 10 hours?" Sterl frowned slightly, not because he doubted hisbat skills, but whether it was possible to spawn that many monsters.


    At this point, he could only hope that the Vige of Death would live up to what the adventure team had said about its insane monster spawning rate.


    Incidentally, Sterl''s quest log also contained another quest—the [Smoke and Mirrors] quest he had taken on before.


    However, Sterl didn''t have the energy to learn another skill at the moment, having decided to skip learning the level 20 skill when hest returned to base.


    His n was to learn both skills after reaching level 40, then tweak and submit his quest to master the Smoke and Mirrors skill in one go.


    Now in the Vige of Death, Sterl looked around with curiosity. It was his first visit here. With his skills and boldness, he found everything intriguing.


    Soon, he noticed a pair of decaying, dark green arms grotesquely stretching out from the front door of the house he had entered earlier.


    Apanied by a strange howl, a gue-ridden zombie with a contorted figure and crawling gait appeared before Sterl.


    With the appearance of the first monster, it was as if a call to arms had sounded.


    From about a dozen houses, monsters emerged. In less than five minutes after Sterl had entered the Vige of Death, he waspletely surrounded.


    Sterl casually activated the detection effect of Star Insight.


    He quickly assessed the strength of this horde of wild beasts. They were mostly between levels 35 and 40, not low in attributes, and could at least match a D-ss professional. Moreover, they came with the skill [Rotting gue]—


    Units hit by the gue-ridden zombies would umte ayer of poison status. This effect could stack indefinitely, shared among all gue-ridden zombie units.


    Instantly, Sterl understood why the previous team had strongly advised him against going solo.


    These monsters were formidable in their own right, challenging for yers of the same level to tackle solo, not to mention their vile skill.


    In solobat, it was inevitable for yers to get hit a few times, allowing the [Rotting gue]''s toxic effect to continuously stack. Even for yers in the high seventies or eighties, the umting toxicity could prove fatal.


    Having a priest on hand to dispel the magic was essential. Otherwise, no matter how strong you were, death was certain.


    Or...


    Another strategy was to ensure the monsters couldn''t touch you at all!


    A confident gleam shed in Sterl''s eyes as he opted for the third solution.


    Descending Deity, activate!


    ze of Bewilderment: Storm Form!


    Golden mes erupted around Sterl, and then…


    He downed a bottle of advanced experience potion and dragged his pet, the Starlight Dragon, out of his sleeve.This little guy is still sleeping.


    Sterl force-fed it a potion as well.


    By now, the gue-ridden zombies had closed in, their eyes glowing green, their ws, carrying terrifying poison, gleamed coldly.


    Facing such a threat, Sterl calmly stuffed the Starlight Dragon back into his sleeve to let it continue sleeping. Only then did he casually snap his fingers.


    [ze of Bewilderment: Storm Form].


    The mes, mixed with the power of the stars and turning a deep blue, formed a storm that instantly engulfed several gue-ridden zombies nearby, turning them into charred remains within seconds.


    Then, the power of the ze of Bewilderment underwent a curious transformation, pouring entirely into the bodies of those already dead monsters.


    In the next second, energy burst forth, the mes turning into very sharp, cobalt blue, thread-like energy bodies, sshing around. Each time they hit a wall or the ground, they would bounce and refract.


    Within seconds, the surroundings turned into a storm of countless blue light beams.


    This energy raged on until it hit the monsters.


    This was the skill shared with the Starlight Dragon, Starlight Ssh!


    The ze of Bewilderment took three seconds to kill four monsters, but Sterl''s passive skill, Starlight Ssh, took only two seconds to kill the remaining ten or so gue-ridden zombies.


    Those thread-like energy bodies turned the monsters into a hive of holes.


    After the second wave of gue-ridden zombies were killed, their bodies burst forth with slightly dimmer thread-like energy bodies.


    Starlight Ssh would continue to trigger in a cycle until it had expended the overflow damage!


    Unfortunately, since there were no monsters nearby, the effect of Starlight Ssh just bounced between the cracks in the walls of the houses before slowly fading away.


    "Holy shit! This is just... too incredible!" Sterl was also surprised and delighted by the sight.


    Such efficiency was noteworthy!


    Typically, monsters scattered in all directions were the most troublesome and the hardest to deal with.Sterl would have to use several skills to kill them all.


    But now, a single ze of Bewilderment cleared them all?? Even the efficiency of Starlight Ssh was unbelievably fast,pleting a wave of harvest in two seconds.


    System notifications continuously rang in Sterl''s ears.


    [You have killed a level 35 gue-ridden zombie, earning 644 experience.]


    [You have killed a level 37 gue-ridden...]


    Sterl''s experience bar slowly increased, and within his inventory, the power of blood within the Bloody Gem condensed another strand.


    It''s worth mentioning that after level twenty, the experience required to level up varies significantly between different sses. So Sterl had no idea how much experience he would need for future levels.


    For him, advancing from level 20 to 21 required 100,000 experience...


    Meanwhile, the stock of blood power within his Bloody Gem, including the newly acquired strand, totaled 27 strands.


    Sterl estimated that afterpleting missions in Death Vige, he should significantly elerate the progress of umting 50 strands of blood power in the Bloody Gem.


    Additionally, there were several other notifications.


    [Your pet Starlight Dragon has gained 644 experience points.]


    [Your pet Starlight Dragon has gained…]


    …


    Sterl''s little pet, without doing anything other than sleeping, was leveling up.


    By the way, pets are considered half a teammate. The reason they''re only half is that when yers carry pets, the experience gained decreases by 25%, and both the yer and the pet receive 75% of the original monster-killing experience.


    Clearly, the game system of [Transcendence] encourages yers to train a pet.


    However, the experience buff is independent for yers and pets, which is why Sterl had also given the Starlight Dragon an experience potion.


    Furthermore, pets also need to meditate to convert their experience into levels.


    Back to the matter at hand, after Sterl had killed the first wave of monsters, he noticed a subtle change in the sky. What was once an azure sky, almost invisible due to the dense yellow sand, gradually darkened as it was enveloped by dust storms.


    Then, over 30 gue-ridden zombies spawned at once, surrounding Sterl. Unfortunately for these monsters, they hadn''t even had time to react before Sterl once again—


    [ze of Bewilderment: Storm Form].


    The first batch of six monsters hit by the skill were burned to death, followed by densely packed blue lines formed by Starlight Ssh ricocheting through the surrounding space.


    The remaining monsters were effortlessly cut into pieces. Despite the doubled number of gue-ridden zombies, it took Sterl merely five seconds to clear them.


    Subsequently, the sky turned increasingly gloomy and dark, even showing a very peculiar blood-red color.


    Sterl felt a bit uneasy. During his time with that adventuring party before, they had never mentioned such a phenomenon.


    He felt a slight sense of difort.


    As the blood-red in the sky grew denser, more and more monsters spawned.


    From over 30 to over 40, to over 60…


    After Sterl cleared several waves of monsters, he could hear continuous banging soundsing from the nearby residential buildings.


    Then—


    A group of foul-smelling bodies forcefully squeezed out from those narrow doorways!