Afterlife Dream

The Cursed Temple was accessible by taking a boat from Chinatown's pier that was located at the end of the map. Different from the boat that I took during my third job advancement, this boat was manned by an NPC that was clothed in a black, tattered robe from head to toe. The NPC's face was hidden under a hood. Only a pair of bony hands peeked out of the sleeves when he started rowing the boat along the river.

Chinatown was a lively place with oriental ambiance and music. The scenery that we saw as we traveled using the boat was, on the contrary, nothing short of the one from Chinese Ghost Stories. Giant, monsterlike willow trees flanked the river from both sides, with the hanging willow branches swaying ever so gently although no gusts of wind blew. The hauntingly long branches looked a lot like ghost hands with long fingernails, waiting to catch anyone who was unfortunate enough to come close.

There was an eerie sound that echoed through the place. The origin was unclear. It seemed to come from all directions at the same time. The pitch of the sound grew louder and louder, resembling the distressed wail of a tormented soul. I unconsciously rubbed at my arms and neck to dispel not the cold but the rising tiny hairs. By the look of it, I was not the only one who was creeped out by the ghostly atmosphere.

Livina and I exchanged cramped looks.

"Creepy," Livina muttered darkly.

"Yep... It feels like going to a haunted place," I said.

"The Cursed Temple is supposedly a haunted place. The story is quite interesting," ZhaoYun told us. He then began to tell the story in a somber tone.

"In ancient times, after the reigning Emperor passed away, the Crown Prince ascended the throne. His reign did not start smoothly as he did not have the full support of the court officials. Almost half of them were rooting for another prince, who then revolted in an attempt to overthrow the newly enthroned Emperor.

The Prince was defeated and he escaped with his whole family to this temple. At night, the Emperor's soldiers caught up to him and massacred everyone inside the temple, including the monks who traitorously allowed the family to stay in the temple.

From then on, the temple was cursed. The ghosts of the murdered nobles and religious monks wandered in the temple, refusing to go to the underworld.

To appease their grief and resentment, the ghosts feed on the players who come to offer their lives..."

At the end of his narration, ZhaoYun who was standing in front of us with his back facing us suddenly turned around. He was holding a lantern in his hands. The light of the lantern illuminated only the bottom half of his distorted face and a bright pair of eyes that shone in the darkness.

"BOOO!!!" He shouted.

"AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!"

We almost fell from the boat in fright.

"HAHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHA!!!"

ZhaoYun doubled over in laughter. He laughed so hard that he ended up kneeling on the boat and pounding against the railing.

"Fuck, that was not funny, man!!!" DragonTalon cursed. He shoved at ZhaoYun's shoulder angrily. ZhaoYun did not retaliate. His stomach hurt from laughing so much.

"Sorry, hahahaha I couldn't resist. You should have seen your faces, hahahahah..."

The boat trip took around fifteen minutes. It bumped gently against the pier at the other side. We stepped on a long wooden platform that extended into the darkness. Some distance away, a tall and esoteric structure with curved eaves stood imposingly like a proud dragon that overlooked a town that it had just laid waste to recently. Other than the sparse moonlight and the lanterns that were hung all over the map, it was completely dark.

This did not make sense because it was noon. Sun was supposed to be shining.

"Is it always this dark around here?" I asked my friends.

HellWitch nodded. "Darker during the night."

The Cursed Temple area was very similar to Lava County and Summer Rainforest. It was a huge map where various monsters huddled together in certain pockets. At the very far end of the map was the entrance cave to the level 80 and 90 raids. At first it was difficult to see who was where, but after a while, our eyes started to get used to the darkness. I could see that we were not the only ones who thought about getting to Cursed Temple to welcome the first invasion.

"Let's find a good spot with not too many people," Livina suggested.

"But we don't know how the monsters would arrive. Maybe they will spawn only at the center? In that case, we will miss them for sure." I remembered that the mini-bosses always spawned at the same spot every time. Maybe the lackeys from Dimensional Sphere would also emerge in a similar fashion.

"Ok, let's spread. Ping in party chat if you see the monsters," ZhaoYun decided.

We thus spread all over the map. I kept the area map open on my screen so I could see the green dots that represented my party members and their exact locations.

At 13.00 sharp, something happened. I had expected to have never-before-seen monsters appear on the map, but it was not what the invasion was like. Instead, the monsters that were wandering in each section were transformed in a flash into their dimensional version. That essentially meant that all of the monsters - and by monsters I meant lost ghosts and demonic girls - changed into white robes with embroideries made of golden threads decorating the edges.

I did not even think twice before attacking. I spammed Holy Wings as much as I could. The monsters died and respawned quickly enough. There was no need to run around the map in search of new monsters.

Just like that, all six of us grinded like insane for two hours, killing as many monsters as we could to get more and more points.

When the clock hit 15.00, the invasion was over and the monsters returned to their original appearance. My friends and I gathered at the map's safe zone to check our Dimensional Points.

I had 345 points.

DragonTalon had 512 points.

Livina had 410 points.

ZhaoYun had 370 points.

HellWitch had 360 points.

Lazarus had 320 points.

"What the heck," I commented, staring at DragonTalon as if he were an alien. "How did you get so many points??"

DragonTalon shrugged. "Well, I have Fire Shield that I summoned every time. The shield burned everything that came close, so that was very helpful."

Grml.

"So about the points," Livina carefully said, " If we go with each player earning 300 points each and we take part in every invasion religiously..."

The event duration was five days, there were three invasions every day. That meant 15 invasions in total. According to Livina's calculation, one player must earn a minimum of 4500 points at the end of the event. 4500 points were equal to 450 Bricks. 2828403 Bricks were necessary to build two bridges. Rounded up, that means at least 6286 players must donate all their points to ensure that both bridges were completed.

"Do we even have 6286 players?" I asked, a little pessimistic.

"Mmm... I believe I have seen the online game statistics before... Oh, here it is."

We all put our heads together to look at Livina's screen.

350 players in Daisyville.

300 players in Dai City.

342 players in Marsh City.

0 players in Fairy Forest.

567 players in Paradise Island.

120 players in Lava County.

134 players in Summer Rainforest.

423 players in Chinatown.

95 players in Cursed Temple.

20 players in Ice Dragon Cave.

25 players in Frozen Tundra Land.

10 players in Black Chimera Hideout.

1 player in Dimensional Sphere.

A total of 2387 players.

We all exchanged gloomy looks.

"300 points minimum is rather low," I commented. "The second invasion should generate more points than the first, and the third should generate even more. People will kill faster and faster."

"Antares is right. Let's be optimistic and say 400 points averagely per player per invasion?" HellWitch suggested.

"Okay," Livina nodded. "Then let me recalculate... We still need 4715 players to complete both bridges."

I sighed. It looked like even with all players doing their best, only one bridge could be completed. The world chat was again filled with comments from players. They had made a similar calculation to Livina's, and had also come to the same conclusion : it was necessary to agree on which bridge to build.

After watching the exchange of opinions in the world chat for some time, I closed my screen and sighed. There was no easy way to pick which bridge.

We went to our daily Queen Spider raid. Three pairs of boots dropped this time, leaving only two more players in the guild who still needed to loot their boots. If we were lucky tomorrow and got at least two pairs of boots, then we did not need to do Queen Spider raid anymore.

After we came out of the raid map, Ingenious wrote into the guild chat, "Everyone, please gather at the Global Market at 21.10. We will have another meeting with all area representatives."