There Must Be Something Wrong With This Game!

After sending the intel to Jinghong, Lone Ranger took advantage of the troops’ rest period to observe the caravan.

Nearly a hundred players had set out, but they were accompanied by over a thousand Priests and Holy Knights.

Their mission was to assist the players, but Lone Ranger knew something was wrong with the Church and felt uneasy. He decided to sink into the Shadow and observe carefully from the darkness.

But just as he found a secluded spot and began to sink in, his passive Skill, Life and Death Intuition, activated.

"A powerful presence has begun watching you. Using any Skills now will alert it and put it on guard."

Life and Death Intuition didn’t activate often, but when it did, the information it provided was always completely accurate.

Deciding not to use his abilities, Lone Ranger started wandering around the camp and noticed Jinghong was doing the same.

They exchanged a slight nod, then split up to continue their investigation.

Although he couldn’t use Shadow or most of his other supernatural powers, Lone Ranger wasn’t limited to just those methods.

He wouldn’t have climbed to eleventh on the Star List relying on Shadow alone.

His powers of observation, his decisiveness, his physical Attributes, and his other passive skills were all tools in his arsenal, allowing him to have his own set of countermeasures even without Shadow.

Walking through the camp, Lone Ranger saw that many players had already started gathering intel, searching everywhere for the source of the contamination.

Some players were indeed making discoveries. They found gems scattered in the dirt, each one containing a fair amount of contamination.

Bringing these gems back and handing them over to a Priest at the city’s Divine Hall would earn them contribution points based on the level of contamination. It was a standard reward for the event instance.

Lone Ranger picked up a few himself, but after realizing the gems weren’t actually that contaminated, he stopped collecting them.

After all, at his level, such a small amount of contribution wasn’t that important anymore.

’If I want to advance further, I’ll need a much bigger score.’

’Like dealing with whoever is watching me from the shadows.’

After searching the area, Lone Ranger found there was nothing else of interest in the camp.

Just as he was considering whether to venture outside, a player suddenly shouted in excitement, "Look what I found! An unidentified Golden Ring!"

Onlookers stared at the player with envy, shouting, "Identify it, quick! Identify it!"

"I don’t have an Identification Scroll!"

"Aww..."

Most items found in event instances were unidentified.

Unidentified items were usually good, but since they were from an event instance, they might be contaminated and carry an unknown Curse.

To find out an item’s effects, you either had to find an Appraiser in a city or use an expensive Identification Scroll.

If you had neither, you could use a special identification method: the Strong Man Identification Method.

To put it more directly, you just brute-force it!

The player who found the ring was about to do just that.

He took a deep breath, let out a roar, and slid the ring onto his ring finger.

The moment it was on, the ring’s color changed dramatically. A black light flashed across the Golden Ring, and then it sprouted sharp metal teeth that sank into the player’s finger.

Even though everyone knew the pain sensitivity in the game wasn’t high, watching the scene still made the onlookers wince in sympathetic pain.

The player, however, quickly opened his status panel and read aloud, "Assassination Ring, but because of the Curse, the only target it can assassinate is... myself. This is such a scam!"

Not long after shouting this, the player was completely drained by the ring and collapsed, dead.

His body weathered away rapidly, and the ring on his hand vanished along with it.

Although the effect was a total rip-off, the discovery still encouraged the other players. They resumed their search, hoping to find something more valuable.

Watching them for a while, Lone Ranger felt that something was very strange.

In *Abyss*, the origin of every item was explained in detail. Special items, in particular, followed a complete and logical system; they shouldn’t be appearing so easily.

Something like killing a rat and having it drop a Dragon Slaying Treasure Saber was virtually impossible in *Abyss*.

Of course, this could be explained away as some Assassin accidentally dropping his ring and a player happening to find it.

But when a second, and then a third item appeared out of nowhere, Lone Ranger felt the probability was just too high.

’More and more things just aren’t adding up.’

Only a very small number of players died from using the Strong Man Identification Method. Most were lucky enough to survive and discovered that the Equipment they’d gotten was actually quite good.

The Strong Man Identification Method only revealed partial information, but even that was enough to get the players incredibly excited.

"A 11% increase to my Speed Attribute! This is a great find!"

"My attacks have a built-in Blood Drain Effect! I feel like I’m gonna be unstoppable!"

"Heheheheh, an earring with the Junior Dragon Summoning Technique! From now on, call me Ryuma! And help me think of a long, cool screen name!"

The crowd of players was as excited as if it were a holiday, which only made Lone Ranger feel that the situation was even stranger.

Based on his understanding of *Abyss*, the game was never this generous.

If it suddenly started being generous, you had to wonder if there was a trap.

Silently readying his Sleeve Sword, Lone Ranger ended his search and walked toward his carriage.

But before he reached it, a Nun came up to him and said earnestly, "Lord Angel, I’ve found a stone. I feel a dense, mysterious aura coming from it. What do you think?"

Seeing the black stone, even someone as strong-willed as Lone Ranger felt his heart skip a beat.

It was a solid piece of Lamium Ore, and the stone still carried the aura of Shadow.

Lamium Ore was a fictional metal ore in *Abyss* that was compatible with Shadow Energy.

Ordinary metals would continuously corrode in Shadow Energy, but Lamium Metal not only resisted corrosion, it actually adapted to the Shadow to generate immense Power.

A fingernail-sized piece of Lamium Ore cost 100,000 Abyss Coins. The piece in front of him was large enough for Lone Ranger to craft a pair of Sleeve Swords, several Flying Knives, and—what he wanted most of all—a pair of boots that would increase his movement speed in the Shadow.

"...Thank you."

He reached out for the ore. But just as his hand was about to touch it, he abruptly changed his movement. The hidden Sleeve Sword shot out, instantly slitting the Nun’s throat.

Blood gushed from the Nun’s wound. Despite the fatal injury, she didn’t collapse. Instead, she looked at Lone Ranger and gave him a chilling smile.

"Strange. This is clearly what you desire most. Why won’t you accept it?"

Kicking the Nun away, Lone Ranger sprinted toward the carriage. Then he heard an explosion.

Magic Power surged into the sky. Wielding a black Demon Sword and now instantly clad in a cloak, the Shadow God emerged from the carriage. Before him was a Priest, already burned to ashes by the flames of the Demon Sword.

"The hero arrives!"

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