Hidden Boss?

So that’s how he interprets it? Well, that works too, Xie Shuangxue thought.

He could clearly hear the sounds outside. The player kept muttering to himself, as if he were talking to someone, but he was indeed following the directions step by step as instructed.

The skeleton ghosts let out hoarse roars, and then came the clanking sounds of daggers against bones. It seemed like the fight was heating up.

At first, things seemed to go well, but then they got a bit rough.

Before long, Xie Shuangxue heard the player let out a short “Ah!” and then, silence. Listening carefully, he could only hear the rattling sounds of skeletal bones.

He glanced outside, and in his limited line of sight, the player was already gone.

The group of skeleton ghosts seemed ready to bury themselves back in place.

Did he… get wiped out?

…This overly noisy player didn’t seem very strong, Xie Shuangxue thought with a tinge of regret.

This skeleton ghost general, commonly called a “boss” by players, was indeed powerful. After all, they were here to ambush Chun Yao, one of the top fighters in the entire city of skeleton ghosts.

In the game’s lore, Chun Yao was among the highest power levels in Gods and Demons. Even though Chun Yao wasn’t fully developed yet, they weren’t someone to be messed with. This boss could kill an adult Feather Clan member within the storyline, so naturally, it was much stronger than the ghosts outside.

If Qiao Zhihui could hear Xie Shuangxue’s thoughts, he’d jump up to retort.

“I’m no weakling! I’m even famous on the assassin leaderboard!”

It’s just that… assassins are built for sneak attacks, not frontal combat!

Still, he couldn’t deny that the skeleton ghost hidden boss was indeed formidable. Together with the surrounding minions and their combined skills, it only took a single bone blade strike to take out nearly half of his health.

Meanwhile, he’d barely managed to wear down a fifth of the boss’s health before he was killed.

Feeling extremely unsatisfied, Qiao Zhihui respawned at the revival point outside Penglai City, doing his best to ignore the barrage of messages popping up in his livestream chat. Messages like “Haha, the ‘tickling player’ strikes again!” and “Looks like the skeleton ghost just got a scratch… wait, no, skeletons don’t have flesh, haha!” filled his screen.

Frustrated, he spammed messages to his friends online.

“There’s a hidden boss in the new storyline. Join me!”

“Hurry, I’ll pull you in.”

“Waiting on one more, come on!”

If he couldn’t solo it, he’d just team up.

In Gods and Demons, players could form teams of up to five, and this kind of storyline allowed teams to progress together.

Typically, the mission difficulty wasn’t too high, and most casual players could pass it easily. No one expected there’d be such a challenging boss here.

Soon enough, Qiao Zhihui had gathered his team.

It wasn’t just for the thrill of beating the boss—his friends joining so quickly wasn’t simply out of loyalty.

In this storyline, players received a basic reward for completing the quest, available to everyone. But for the third-anniversary event, there was an additional, tiered reward, and the more challenging the mission, the better the prize.

The bonus rewards for the Penglai City storyline depended heavily on how many skeleton ghosts a player defeated. Ordinary skeleton ghosts only gave 1 point each, so to earn top rewards by farming low-level monsters alone was exhausting, and this mission was timed. Killing high-level ghosts was the only efficient option.

The outside boss alone was worth 100 points, and this hidden boss could be worth even more. Endless Sea was being quite generous for the anniversary event, and everyone wanted a shot at the top-tier rewards.

As a streamer, Qiao Zhihui was especially keen to finish off those ghosts, exchange for points, and get rid of his bad luck streak!

Meanwhile, hiding inside the rock garden and unable to move, Xie Shuangxue was thinking of ways to attract a few more players over. Not long after, he heard voices again—this time, even more than before.

“It’s right here!”

After his previous defeat, Qiao Zhihui returned with a team.

So, players could actually bring reinforcements? Xie Shuangxue silently noted this.

The skeleton ghosts and Xie Shuangxue, in keeping with the storyline, had buried themselves again. When Qiao Zhihui approached, he lifted up the tattered grass cover.

“Old ghost, here I come!” Qiao Zhihui yelled as he charged in.

Once more, Xie Shuangxue heard the skeleton ghosts’ hoarse roars, louder and angrier than before.

His vision was still limited, but he could tell that the battle outside was even more intense. Occasionally, colorful flashes of light seeped through the ventilation holes in the rock garden, illuminating the hidden tunnel in bursts.

This fight lasted a lot longer, and this time, Qiao Zhihui had come prepared. He didn’t suffer a silent defeat. Finally, the skeleton ghosts fell under the team’s fierce attack.

For some reason, Qiao Zhihui thought he saw a trace of reluctance on the skeleton boss’s bony face before it perished.

But the next second, he didn’t have time to dwell on it.

This boss was worth 200 points, pushing the bonus reward progress bar forward by a large chunk.

Even better, the boss had dropped loot.

“Let me see,” one of Qiao Zhihui’s friends quickly came over, eyes lighting up. “Wow, the materials are all red-tier, and there’s even a gold!”

No wonder this boss was so tough.

In Gods and Demons, item quality was easy to recognize by color, with six levels: white for common, green for fine, blue for rare, purple for special, red for epic, and gold for legendary.

This particular gold-tier item was a highly sought-after material called the White Bone Token. It was needed to craft several renowned legendary demon weapons, and any ghost-type boss had a chance of dropping it.

This item could be sold for real-world money, worth enough to cover an ordinary person’s monthly expenses. It was currently in high demand.

The moment this rare golden material dropped, it triggered a world announcement, and the world chat channel exploded with messages.

Now, no one in the livestream was laughing anymore.

“Holy crap, I laughed at the streamer earlier. This isn’t bad luck; it’s money from heaven!”

“Laughing at you before was my bad; clearly, I’m the fool.”

“The stones hitting you earlier weren’t just rocks—they were gold nuggets from the heavens!”

The chat had it right—by now, viewership in Qiao Zhihui’s livestream had skyrocketed to four or five times the usual, continuing to climb, making this his most-watched stream ever.

He even received a system notification that, due to the spike in popularity, Lin Jiao Live had automatically put him on the front page.

This was like a triple jackpot for him—high points, rare loot, and a surge in stream viewers.

Qiao Zhihui’s grin stretched from ear to ear.

To be honest, he’d joined Lin Jiao Live, this new platform, half a year ago. But attention hadn’t met expectations, and his streams had been lukewarm. Just today, a streamer friend advised him to try Dreamscape’s new game since it offered a lot for promotion.

Word had it that several famous streamers on other platforms were testing out Dreamscape today, which would inevitably draw viewers away from Gods and Demons.

However, since Lin Jiao Live had officially become a subsidiary of Endless Sea, and with Gods and Demons getting a big promotional push, Qiao Zhihui hesitated and ultimately stuck with Gods and Demons.

He knew he’d be lucky!

This is what you get for staying loyal, he thought.

His friend clicked his tongue and said, “You’re one lucky dog to find such a rare thing. I’ve never seen you this sharp before.”

Qiao Zhihui immediately retorted, “Nonsense! I’ve always been smart!”

…But come to think of it, who threw that thing at him earlier?

Just as he was about to think further on it, his teammates had already decided on the loot distribution, checked the world chat, and hurriedly urged him.

“This is bad, it’s all over the livestream, and now everyone knows. People will be flocking here. Qiao, what channel is this?”

“I got in early, so it’s auto-assigned to Channel 1.”

“Quick, let’s switch channels!”

Then Xie Shuangxue watched as the team hurriedly vanished.

His plan was a success, yet no one realized he was the mastermind, and he still couldn’t leave.

Because of his character, the system’s logic dictated that such a cautious person would stay put, waiting for the Feather Clan to come for him.

But these were minor details.

The skeleton ghost was truly dead, and he was sure of it.

Xie Shuangxue had successfully altered the storyline, updating his understanding of the “players” and their potential. However, he also felt some confusion.

As a newly self-aware NPC, the true gaming world still held many mysteries. Although he read the forums, the information there was so vast that it wasn’t always easy to understand; often, he only half-comprehended things, learning as he went along.

For instance, he realized just now that the feeling during testing and the live release were different.

From his perspective, the Feather Clan who came to rescue him should have arrived by now, but they hadn’t. This was easy to guess—testing sessions were limited, focused only on key storylines, with a condensed timeline. In the official version, there was ample time for players to complete tasks and explore freely.

But there was one thing Xie Shuangxue still hadn’t figured out, something he’d thought about even before he fully entered the game world.

While the Feather Clan member still hadn’t shown up, he noticed that several players had climbed over the walls to inspect the slain skeletons.

He counted, about a dozen in total.

He heard every word of the previous players’ conversation, including mentions of a “livestream.” He guessed the leader was a streamer, which explained the constant muttering.

With a game claiming billions of registered users, there was no way only a few players would be interested. The number was too small.

He’d heard terms like “Channel 1” and “switch channel” and knew from browsing the forums that Gods and Demons had multiple channels or instances.

He hadn’t fully understood how the channels worked in Penglai City, a place small enough to be overcrowded with players waiting for the event.

Penglai City was designed to accommodate around fifty players for the best experience. When the player count exceeded that, SEA would automatically divide them across channels, each like a parallel instance.

Players could even switch channels manually if numbers didn’t exceed the maximum capacity. This allowed players to explore and complete missions at their own pace.

But Penglai City’s mission monsters didn’t respawn. They were set to be cleared as part of a rescue mission, so refreshing monsters would make it an endless task.

The main storyline designated monsters for each player and assigned them specific search areas, allowing diligent players to farm extra, while casual ones could simply complete the mission without interference.

These precautions weren’t just for player experience—they also made backend management easier. With so many players, dividing them made things more manageable. Even if players in one channel disrupted the preset storyline, it would only affect one instance among countless others.

SEA could then automatically erase these minor deviations, seamlessly returning players to the game designers’ original, unified storyline.

But now, things were different.

Players knew that changing channels could reveal a new set of monsters, and each new channel contained a hidden boss.

By the time the Gods and Demons development team realized the issue, players were already out in full force, clearing out the skeleton generals stationed across every channel.

It wasn’t just one channel that was affected; it was all of them—all channels!