The voice was low and came with a heavy echo, sounding incredibly familiar.
"Morphis?"
"Who else could it be, you idiot? You still have the nerve to sleep when danger is right at your doorstep, you dull-witted buffoon."
It was then that Mo Fei realized he was dreaming. Ever since he started playing "World of Sky," he often dreamed about the black dragon Morphis—probably because of the old saying, "What one thinks about in the day, one dreams of at night." Sometimes in his dreams, he himself was the black dragon, but he couldn't control his body very well.
Sometimes, the black dragon appeared as a separate entity in the dream and would even chat with him.
However, the black dragon's attitude was usually quite lousy, calling him "stupid human" or "insignificant ant," which oddly enough echoed the way he talked during his live streams.
After a while, Mo Fei got used to it. He guessed this might be some kind of projection of his subconscious, or maybe he was so immersed in the game that it started to affect his thinking.
Even though that was the case, he wasn't too concerned, actually finding it quite interesting. Listening to the black dragon's verbal abuse, he didn't get angry and, instead, asked curiously, "What danger are you talking about?"
"Humph, do I really need to tell you? Haven't you noticed anything? I bet you've already sensed it, but you humans are so duplicitous, always deceiving others and yourselves, never daring to face the problems before you."
"Hey, can you be more specific? How about a hint?"
"You'll find out soon enough. Now—wake up!" As the black dragon spoke, it suddenly revealed a ferocious and malicious smile.
Mo Fei immediately sensed trouble, "Wait a second, not that trick again."
But it was too late. The black dragon opened its gaping maw, and a stream of searing dragonfire surged forth, instantly engulfing him.
Mo Fei felt a burning pain throughout his body as if he were on fire, and he suddenly woke from his sleep, sitting up in the dark, drenched in cold sweat.
He touched the sweat on his face, thinking, Damn it, it uses this trick to scare me awake every time, what the hell.
Could it be that he had set too many people on fire in the game, and now a sense of guilt was emerging in his subconscious? Or was his psyche getting twisted, feeling uncomfortable unless he was torching someone? Damn, I might need to see a psychiatrist about this; getting too much into a non-human character seems to leave psychological trauma.
He had seen many news stories about actors driven mad because they couldn't escape the characters they played and worried he might end up the same way.
Just as he was contemplating this, the sound of "Dragonkin's Anthem" suddenly started playing—it was his phone's ringtone. He picked up the phone and saw it was a call from his manager.
"Hello, what's up?"
"Mo Fei, get up quick! Something big has happened. Your dungeon has been breached! The raid is led by a hero called Dawn Divine Sword. They've already triggered the plot battle, which is named 'The Ballad of the Dragon-Slaying Brave'! They're clearly coming for you. Aren't you going to hurry over?"
What? Mo Fei instantly woke up fully.
He quickly got dressed, washed his face with cold water, and dashed to the streaming room, getting the details from the manager on the way.
About ten minutes ago, around three o'clock in the morning, a full team of Adventurers appeared at the dark Dragon Nest dungeon entrance. They didn't stop for anything, cutting through their enemies like they were chopping vegetables, heading straight for Storm Peak.
The elite dragonkin guards at the dungeon entrance hadn't lasted even five minutes before they were completely annihilated. Now, the Adventurer team had breached the dungeon and triggered the plot battle.
So that was it! So that was it!
Mo Fei finally understood why he had felt something was off before; it turned out that the whole guild had been bait to get his attention, with the real trap lying in wait here.
I just have to explain here.
Plot campaigns are special in-game events that can only be triggered under certain conditions.
The most common of which is the showdown between heroes and bosses. If a team of adventurers attacks a dungeon, it won't trigger a plot campaign.
Because from the perspective of the game's story, adventurers don't exist as individuals; they're just part of the backdrop. Therefore, no matter how many times adventurers kill a boss, it can be resurrected.
Heroes are the same. It doesn't matter if they are killed by monsters in the wild; they can wake up in their own bedrooms after a turn, lie down for a few days, then jump around as lively as ever again.
But once a plot campaign is triggered, the situation is completely different.
In the game World of Sky, there's a design called the Chronicles of Sky. All sorts of events happening in the game get recorded in the Chronicles of Sky, and the overall storyline of the game evolves based on it.
If a boss is killed by adventurer players, then this event doesn't exist in the storyline and won't be recorded in the Chronicles of Sky because, story-wise, adventurers are just backdrops. Although there is such a group of people, they don't exist as individuals.
After all, there are so many adventurers who can resurrect indefinitely, but the number of bosses is finite. If bosses died each time they were killed, they wouldn't last long against the adventurers, and story-wise, it would be illogical. Imagine a Demon King wants to destroy the world but is killed by a group of adventurers led by people named Li Dog-egg, Wang Er Mazi, or "I'm Your Daddy." No one can accept such a plot.
That's why in previous games, no matter how many times players killed a boss, it would bounce back to life when the dungeon reset because adventurers don't matter in the storyline. In the story, bosses can only be killed by certain heroic figures.
World of Sky inherits this, and bosses being killed by adventurers isn't a big deal. However, if you're in a plot campaign and a boss or hero with a name and reputation kills you, this event gets recorded in the Chronicles of Sky and becomes part of the game's history, unalterable and unrevivable. This type of death is known as plot-kill.
For example, if Mo Fei kills this player with the Dawn Divine Sword, the Chronicles of Sky would record that on such a year, month, and day, the hero with the Dawn Divine Sword led a group of adventurers to attack the Dark Dragon Nest and was killed by the Black Dragon Lord Morphis in battle.
That character would be completely gone. Of course, if Mo Fei were killed by the other party, he would indeed die for real.
The Chronicles of Sky would document:
The hero with the Dawn Divine Sword led a group of adventurers in slaying the evil Black Dragon Lord Morphis, rescuing the Princess...
The risks are so great that naturally, the rewards aren't meager. In a plot campaign, killing a boss or hero with a name and reputation (including some special NPCs and elite monsters) can earn a lot of Plot Points, a key resource for heroes and bosses to improve their rank. The more famous your enemy, the more Plot Points you get.
Morphis was promoted to the Black Dragon Lord, a calamity-level boss, with no shortage of heroes and bosses dying by his hand.
Additionally, in plot campaigns, killing certain bosses or heroes allows you to obtain all their relics, including related plot items. For instance, Morphis once killed a human hero and gained a plot weapon, the [Frostblade]. Now, it's included in his loot list, with a 7% chance of dropping a knock-off version of this weapon when adventurers defeat him.
But if a hero kills him, the original weapon drops 100% of the time.
For bosses, the biggest use of these plot items is to strengthen the loot pool. Attractive drops can lure more adventurer teams to challenge them and also reduce the loss of loot points when they're defeated. (Loot generated by plot items only consumes 50% of loot points).
For heroes (including humanoid bosses), these plot equipments are powerful weapons that are truly usable, stronger than the knock-offs used by adventurers, and even possess extraordinary powers not found in the knock-offs.
Take Morphis's [Frostblade], for instance. The effect of the knock-off version held by adventurer players is — Frost Power: Freeze and slow a target for 3 seconds, causing 100 frost damage.
The original Frostblade's effect, however, is — Frost Storm: Create a frost storm that continually freezes all enemies within a 100-meter radius, inflicting a total of 1000 frost damage over 30 seconds and triggering a freeze effect every 6 seconds spent within the storm.
It's the real difference between the seller's show and the buyer's show.
And this is just one of the many pieces of loot Morphis has.
Because the stakes are so high, as long as they are confident enough, both heroes and bosses usually won't hesitate to make a move. Win, and soar to new heights; lose, and it's time to delete and restart from scratch.