Jiang Qiao could feel a strong hatred from this Queen Mei. This hatred was directed at the Sea Blue Goddess... Though Queen Mei had kept a stoic face throughout the encounter, her sword showed no mercy as she repeatedly cut down Jiang Qiao.
During their conversation, Jiang Qiao had already been sliced into five pieces consecutively.
"I actually have only one question," Jiang Qiao said after being killed instantly by Queen Mei for the fifth time. He gave up on negotiating for a peaceful solution and directly asked the question he most wanted to know: "Do you have a second phase?"
"Second... phase?" She seemed to ponder this, seemingly not understanding what Jiang Qiao meant, and then cut him into fifteen pieces with one stroke.
"Alright, see you on the battlefield soon. Hmm... let me think, I guess I should say, just wait, I'll go gather some people!"
After leaving this somewhat aggrieved declaration, Jiang Qiao's figure disappeared from Queen Mei's sight.
When Jiang Qiao opened his eyes again, Hai Lan had somehow already moved close to him, looking at him with a worried expression.
Seeing Hai Lan, Jiang Qiao instinctively shrank back a little, this action reminding him of the beautiful and holy Queen Mei, and he couldn't help but sigh deeply.
"Why are you sighing again?" Hai Lan remembered this wasn't the first time Jiang Qiao sighed while looking at her.
"Nothing, just thinking that this final boss might be a bit tricky to handle," Jiang Qiao said.
"Tricky... hard to deal with? What's their name? Maybe I can recall their weakness or something."
Hai Lan wanted to help Jiang Qiao in this state, rather than in her creator state. In her normal state, the most Hai Lan could probably help with was cleaning out the nearly expired food in the fridge.
"The name is Mei Steen, does that ring a bell?" Jiang Qiao hoped to hear some weaknesses about the queen, like if she had a second phase or something.
"No impression." Hai Lan said dejectedly after hearing the name, "My memories about the original world are very fragmented, I only remember some unimportant things."
"Alright..." Jiang Qiao didn't expect Hai Lan to be able to help much in this state.
"What's tricky about her?" Hai Lan asked hurriedly.
"She's too beautiful, her temperament is also great, more accurately, she's too beautiful," Jiang Qiao believed this was Queen Mei's greatest advantage. To players, this was even scarier than having a deadly instant-kill skill.
"How is that a tricky point!" Hai Lan couldn't understand what Jiang Qiao was saying.
"Because if the final boss is too good-looking, players might defect."
"What?"
"There might be organizations among the player base, like a Queen Mei Knights group."
Jiang Qiao seriously informed Hai Lan of this... terribly bad news, but Hai Lan, looking dumbfounded, still couldn't understand 'why it would turn out this way.'
"Let me put it this way, as I said before, the Holy Spirits game is the players' playground. Normal monsters, elite monsters, and bosses are like amusement park rides to them. Rides can be liked by players, and when a boss that's both strong and cute appears, there's a high probability the internet will produce fan works about this boss... In short, it's a bit of a hassle," Jiang Qiao explained.
"Isn't having me, the goddess, enough for the players?" Hai Lan understood the meaning in Jiang Qiao's words, and she, somewhat indignant, placed her hand over her chest: "In terms of charm, I, as a goddess, should be superior to any female from the enemy camp, right?"
"Well..."
Jiang Qiao awkwardly shifted his gaze away from Hai Lan and took out the Book of Systems to start the next planning.
"Don't change the subject at a time like this! Think seriously, no matter what, my charm as a goddess should be on par if not higher than Queen Mei, right? If I show up, the players..."
"Hai Lan, the Black Pepper Steak I ordered has arrived. Can you help pick it up?" Jiang Qiao said.
"It arrived so quickly? I... oh, fine." Hai Lan had wanted to continue the 'who's more beautiful, me or that woman' discussion with Jiang Qiao, but for the sake of the steak, she decided to let it drop.
Jiang Qiao used the spare time to open the Book of Systems to check the current Creation Energy balance.
He currently had around seventeen thousand four hundred points of Creation Energy, with a few more points added every ten or so minutes.
This was earned by the players in the Tower of Trial for Jiang Qiao.
From the several confrontations with Queen Mei just now... well, it could also be called one-sided massacres, it was clear that Queen Mei could absorb the Creation Energy after killing Hai Lan's creations.
This was really bad news.
"You lied... there's no steak, only fried chicken," Hai Lan suddenly popped back to inform Jiang Qiao at this point.
"Forget the chicken and steak for now. Hai Lan, there's a real difficulty in this instance strategy," Jiang Qiao closed the Book of Systems, knowing that for this strategy, Hai Lan's divine Plane Fragment wouldn't allow players to mindlessly revive and fill up the instance with lives.
"Is that female human really that beautiful?"
"It's not that... it's that she also has the ability to absorb your Creation Energy," Jiang Qiao explained.
"This... isn't possible! But... if she controlled my godhead, she might be able to do it."
Hai Lan began thinking of a countermeasure, but with her current abilities, she couldn't think of a way to limit the opponent's energy absorption.
"In the Holy Spirits world, players' revival doesn't consume energy because it's like they're being teleported from one place to another, but in your Plane Fragment, when players die, the energy that constructs them is absorbed by the creatures of that Plane, and we need to consume more energy to revive the players," Jiang Qiao explained.
"How much energy is needed?" Hai Lan asked, uncertain.
"Not much, ten to thirty points, but considering the number of players, it's a massive amount. Also, the more often the player dies, the more Creation Energy will be needed to revive them again," Jiang Qiao relayed the daunting message to Hai Lan. "But I have another hypothesis: if players kill the monster that previously killed them after reviving, they might be able to reclaim the lost energy."
"Where did this hypothesis come from?"
"A game," Jiang Qiao thought more about how to design the large instance, "In any case, we need to increase the death penalty for players in your Plane Fragment. The first step is to start with the NPCs closest to the players."