Chapter 708 – The Price of Taboo Mode

Ruined Temple, Ruined Library:

When the thousand-meter-tall portal bloomed with dazzling brilliance, the magic runes responsible for sealing it dissipated completely. Almost simultaneously, the several hundred thousand players gathered in front of the portal went into a frenzy.

“Charge!”

“The Taboo Dungeon’s First Clear is ours!”action

The many 100-man teams in the plaza charged into the portal one after another frantically, all of them aiming to secure the Ruined Library’s First Clear and become the pioneer of the new era in God’s Domain.

However, whether it was the various superpowers’ teams or the foreign Tier 6 teams, none moved from where they stood. They merely observed all of this happening, behaving like they didn’t care about the Ruined Library’s First Clear.

Imbeciles. Do they think a Taboo Dungeon’s First Clear can be easily acquired?

the one-eyed middle-aged Guardian Knight from the Dragon Hunting Temple thought contemptuously as he watched the teams swarming the Ruined Library’s entrance portal.

Taboo Dungeons were considered gold mines, even in the Greater God’s Domain. However, not just any power could harvest these gold mines.

This wasn’t to say that certain powers had monopolized Taboo Dungeons and forbade others from entering. On the contrary, although apex powers had indeed occupied some of the known Taboo Dungeons in the Greater God’s Domain, they would gladly welcome anyone to enter their Taboo Dungeons if the other party was willing to pay a fee of 50,000 units of Seven Luminaries Crystal or treasures of equivalent value. They would even welcome their enemies with open arms if they were willing to pay up.

Of course, these apex powers weren’t doing so wasn’t out of generosity, and neither was it because they didn’t care about the items inside Taboo Dungeons.

Instead, it was because of the great difficulty of raiding Taboo Dungeons and the extreme cost of deaths inside Taboo Dungeons. If players died inside a Taboo Dungeon, they wouldn’t simply lose some EXP and items. They would also lose a portion of their Immortal Souls.

During the advent of Taboo Dungeons, players never noticed the damage to their Immortal Souls when they died in a Taboo Dungeon. This was because the portion they lost on each death was barely perceptible. However, as players started to experience more deaths inside Taboo Dungeons, they eventually noticed the subtle death penalty in Taboo Dungeons.

But even then, players didn’t care about the loss as it was so miniscule that it did not affect their normal development.

That was, until one day, a main force member of a particular power lost an accumulated total of 10% of his Immortal Soul while raiding Taboo Dungeons. Upon hitting the 10% threshold, said player suffered a permanent death, and the news dumbfounded the various powers back then.

Under normal circumstances, if players lost only 10% of their Immortal Souls, they wouldn’t even see any impact on their Skill and Spell usage. Yet, a player had suffered a permanent death after losing just 10% of their Immortal Soul to Taboo Dungeons.

This discovery frightened the Greater God’s Domain’s various powers. As a result, none of the various powers dared to recklessly allow their teams to raid Taboo Dungeons from then onward.

Meanwhile, based on past successes, a team would have to be fully composed of Tier 6 experts equipped with Fragmented Legendary Equipment Sets to successfully raid Taboo Dungeons. Moreover, these were only Level 210 Taboo Dungeons.

In the case of Level 210-plus Taboo Dungeons, each team member would need to have at least one or two pieces of Legendary Equipment. Otherwise, the chances of success would be near non-existent.

As luck would have it, the Ruined Temple was a Level 210 Taboo Dungeon. It was the greatest difficulty conglomerates and upper-ranking hegemonic powers like the Dragon Hunting Temple were willing to challenge. Not to mention, the Ruined Temple’s First Clear reward remained available, and there was no need to pay an entrance fee since nobody had laid claim to the Taboo Dungeon yet. Hence, they were willing to pay the price of sending some members through the World Gate before it opened to descend upon this God’s Domain.

However, rather than blindly charging into the Taboo Dungeon like the native teams, what they should do first and foremost was to wait.

Whenever a new Taboo Dungeon appeared, it was standard for the various powers to send numerous reconnaissance teams to gather as much information as possible. Never would they send their main forces into a Taboo Dungeon blind. After all, the main force members of any power were highly valuable and would require a lot of time to replace. It was especially so for peerless geniuses, as the loss of such geniuses could take years, decades, or even centuries to recover from.

As for why they had shown up so early, it was to detain and interrogate any natives who came out of the Taboo Dungeon.

…

“The crowd is gone. How are your preparations coming along?” Shi Feng asked Phoenix Rain when he saw the mostly empty plaza.

After sweeping her gaze across her teammates, Phoenix Rain nodded and answered, “We are ready to go.”

“Okay, let’s head inside, then,” Shi Feng said before entering the Ruined Library with Phoenix Rain, Ji Luorong, and the others.

…

You are doomed for sure, Phoenix Rain!

When Nine Dragons Emperor saw Phoenix Rain entering the Ruined Library, he couldn’t help but smirk.

This was the first time a Taboo Dungeon had appeared in their God’s Domain, so there shouldn’t be anybody from their God’s Domain who knew about the cost of Taboo Dungeons. If not for the Dragon Hunting Temple, Nine Dragons Emperor wouldn’t have known about the horrors of Taboo Dungeons, either.

Meanwhile, knowing Illusory Words’ relationship with Phoenix Rain, Nine Dragons Emperor had deliberately kept this information from Illusory Words. So, by the time Phoenix Rain notices the damage to her Immortal Soul, she should only be a few deaths away from a permanent death.

…