Chapter 1752
Chapter 1752 - 1748: Fatal BUG
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"...Another death, is it?"
When Lu Ping’an awakened from death once more, the corners of his mouth carried a smile.
This time, it was not a cold smile or a bitter one, but a genuine joy from the depths of his heart.
It seemed that everything had begun to change.
"The losses... are still acceptable."
Lu Ping’an glanced at the Life-points consumed for this revival—around the equivalence of two deaths.
It appeared that even fragments of a God Above Gods couldn’t match the destructive scale of its true form.
In fact, he could have reduced the cost in the moments leading up to his death.
Faced with an attack that required a charge-up time, he was fully prepared, even ready to pre-emptively self-destruct... For him, dying was the best way to preserve his Life-points; after all, beings beyond the Tenth-order seemed capable of harming the very roots of the soul with even a Flat A attack.
Yet, at that moment, he willingly stopped himself.
Staring at the falling "Sun," he suddenly found himself entranced.
"How beautiful..."
The scorching sun, which mortals could not gaze upon directly, emitting lethal light and heat, appeared to him as a burst of lively particles.
The flickering radiant spots allowed Lu Ping’an, who had long grown accustomed to a world of black and white, to once again see color.
And in those less-than 0.1 seconds of captivation, Lu Ping’an came to understand...
"It will be mine."
So, he made a wager. He stopped suppressing his thoughts and allowed his flesh and soul to burn simultaneously in the blaze, dying a fiery, agonizing death!
He even deliberately extended the ordeal by connecting himself to the adorable Little Flame, converting his own physical attributes to grant immunity to fire (Flaming Absorption).
Theoretically, an Elemental Body capable of absorbing light and heat and immune to ordinary flames and most Extraordinary fire attacks should be able to turn flame attacks into a form of healing... Yet this time, for just a fleeting moment, Lu Ping’an was no more.
He couldn’t even definitively say whether he had "overloaded on energy" or been "burnt to ashes" on the material plane.
Nonetheless, since his revived self returned with a smile, it was self-evident that his death hadn’t been in vain.
[Congratulations, Host, for obtaining an unnamed thread of True Burning Flame (Upper Divine Tier).]
This death allowed his Flame Absorption attribute to acquire a small "Gift" from the Golden Crow.
And this perpetually doomed system finally gave something above Gold-tier a classification—"Upper Divine Tier" seemingly aligned with the standards beyond the Tenth-order.
Amused, Lu Ping’an opened his palm, summoning a flame like before. The next moment, he shook his head.
"Doesn’t feel much different..."
Even as the blaze gently burned in his hand, he sensed no discernible change. Perhaps that "thread" was just too minuscule.
Thus, as he stepped outside, Lu Ping’an looked towards the skies and the kaleidoscopic Golden Crow.
But it was far from the main focus for now.
"...The Steel-Forged Xingtian is recovering! But its regeneration is slow."
"The attack was effective! It worked!"
"As expected! Attacks of the same tier are effective. I knew our plan had a chance of succeeding..."
Stepping into the Command Center, Lu Ping’an was greeted by the sight of bustling crowds and the enormous screen displaying the half-destroyed Evil Beast.
Its surroundings were scarred by scorch marks, with only two of its six claws remaining. Its skin was completely gone, leaving it resembling an unskinned frog.
It lay in the sea, its flesh continually multiplying.
A wound that should have been fatal to any normal life form... Yet it was evident the Evil Beast was still regenerating its fresh tissue at an astonishing rate.
Even such an attack, it seemed, could not entirely kill it.
But the beast was trapped in a massive, bottomless pit, with seawater pouring in without end.
The previous strike hadn’t shattered the star, but it had nearly pierced through the planet’s crust... And this was with much of the force absorbed by the Beast.
Attacks of the top-order Strongmen were controlled to limit collateral damage. This could already be considered a concession, sparing Earth further disaster.
Although Lu Ping’an had always considered the notion of a single person destroying a star as exaggeration, it was now apparent that beings in the Upper Divine Stage could indeed achieve such feats.
Or rather, the Golden Crow might have been designed specifically for that purpose.
"...The attack worked!"
This phrase was being repeated over and over by the crowd.
The joy and relief entwined in their voices were unrestrained.
The past days had been unbearably grim; countless sacrifices had been made, but even so, breaking through the creature’s defense had seemed near impossible. Only rare, top-tier Strongmen had managed to leave so much as a scar.
But now, although the Beast was regenerating, it was no longer instantly healing back to full strength after just a minor breakthrough as before. This meant the attack had real effects.
If the injuries could accumulate, it would inevitably lead to death... As long as a health bar had appeared, it could be depleted.
Watching the constantly regenerating Beast, Lu Ping’an smiled and once again stepped onto the battlefield.
This time, they wouldn’t grant it the luxury of full recovery.
The second batch of Huge Dragons was surfacing, while the Golden Crow hovered in outer space, preparing for the next strike.
During the previous explosive moment, the Huge Dragons had entirely locked down the Beast’s movement. The restriction of "unable to harm fellow comrade" forced it to endure the devastating assault head-on.
And when it sustained severe injuries and began readying a counterattack, the Golden Crow had already retreated to a distant range.
Yet again, the Huge Dragons closed in on the wounded Beast, forming an identical encirclement barrier as before.
Meanwhile, the Golden Crow cautiously approached once more.
In truth, Lu Ping’an had already drawn a conclusion during their first encounter.
If the foe held grudges, it would have attacked directly upon their second meeting. Clearly, the logic governing this bio-weapon’s actions didn’t accommodate the concept of retaliatory attacks on comrades.
This was a behavioral logic loophole. The bio-weapon didn’t need to consider such situations, as it would autonomously attack all life forms (excluding comrades). Even if comrades did betray it... It would relentlessly hunt them down until their death.
This flaw became glaringly apparent during Lu Ping’an’s probing tests.
𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎
The loophole required two comrades to betray simultaneously—one to merely restrict its movement without attacking, and the other to strike and flee, testing whether it bore grudges.
Now, as the Golden Crow hovered directly before the Evil Beast, the Beast still refrained from attacking... Perhaps because the Huge Dragons blocked its path, and the "unable to harm fellow comrade" restriction took precedence over other behavioral logic.
Machines would forever operate based on logic. And now, through Lu Ping’an’s experiments, this had been exposed.
Again, the Sun descended.
The searing Sun melted everything in its path, its level of destructive force immeasurable.
And once more at the heart of it all, Lu Ping’an was reduced to ash... This time, though, he lasted a full second longer than before.
[Congratulations, Host, for obtaining one unnamed True Burning Flame Seed (Upper Divine Tier).]
And this time, the rewards seemed even greater.
As he revived again from death, the cheers that welcomed him resonated throughout—it seemed everyone had glimpsed the possibility of victory.
— End of Chapter 1752 —