Chapter 137 It’s time to show the health bar, hidden boss
Under the sunlight, the thirty-six teardrop-shaped gems sparkled, and as if they could sense each other, they began to vibrate slightly, and clear light flashed on their surface.

Everyone couldn’t help but hold their breath and surrounded the gem, staring with eyes wide open, not wanting to miss any details.

The light became brighter and brighter as it flickered, and the frequency of the flickering became faster and faster. Finally, at a certain moment, the thirty-six gems burst out with amazing light together, and then merged into one, turning into a necklace composed of thirty-six water-drop gems.

This is the true appearance of the great sage’s relics.

When the necklace saw the light of day again, a touch of emerald green light outlined a picture in front of everyone.

That is…the map of [Troll Valley].

On this map, two dark areas are clearly marked, one is located outside the valley, almost at the end of the map, and the other is located in the deepest part of the valley.

“That location…” Ji Xiaoyu looked at the location outside the valley, his eyes slightly focused, “It’s the cursed altar we destroyed.”

“Yes.” Yu Zhun nodded slightly and looked at another place on the map. “In the Troll Valley, there are two curses that need to be lifted.”

“You only need to obtain a spring token and get useful information from the [Human Circle] to find and crack it.”

“For the other place, you need to obtain all the spring tokens before you can find the corresponding location.”

“This is similar to what I guessed.” Yu Zhun said softly, “The curse that destroyed the holy city is not the best outcome.”

“Let’s go.” Yu Zhun looked at the direction indicated by the map and walked towards the deepest part of the Troll Valley without hesitation.

It has become the main battlefield of the war between humans and demons. Amid the deafening shouts and screams, the trolls and the awakened humans in the [human circle] are fighting each other.

Both sides turned a deaf ear to the arrival of Yu Zhun’s team, as if they had not noticed them at all.

“It seems we have to speed up.” Looking at the trolls and humans lying on the ground, Yu Zhun frowned slightly, “If they continue to fight, our perfect first pass may be lost.”

“President Yu, have you guessed what the other curse is?” Hearing Yu Zhun’s hidden meaning, Zhou Yunhao couldn’t help but be curious.

“Yes.” Yu Zhun quickened his pace and spoke calmly, “Except for the trolls who must be killed to guard the spring, the other trolls will never be hostile to us from beginning to end.”

“Have you ever wondered why this is?”

“This…” Zhou Yunhao was stunned for a moment, “Isn’t this to allow the trolls to better lure the strategy players into the [human circle]?”

If they can become hostile, players can easily kill the trolls as ordinary monsters and will not be abducted by them at all. This means that players can move around in the [Troll Valley] at will and actively look for the location of the spring.

“Of course not.” Yu Zhun shook his head. “Everything in the dungeon doesn’t exist just to target players.”

“Could it be that the trolls are also our targets? So they won’t be hostile to us?” Ji Xiaoyu blinked, looking confused. “But if the trolls don’t die, how can we protect humans?”

“This involves another question.” Yu Zhun smiled, “Do you remember how the trolls appeared in the legend told by the [Defender]?”

“They suddenly appeared after the holy land was cursed.”

“How could such a powerful race appear out of thin air?”

“I’m more inclined to believe that they were transformed from another race.”

“Based on this speculation, think about it again…” Yu Zhun shook the relic necklace in his hand, “Why would the relics of the great sage have such a great impact on the trolls?”

“You mean…” Zhou Yunhao was shocked and looked at Yu Zhun in disbelief, “The trolls were once human beings?”

Humans have turned into man-eating monsters?

“When I killed the trolls guarding the spring, I observed them carefully.” Yu Zhun paused slightly, “Their bodies are not much different from humans. This is more like some kind of mutation, or curse.”

“If the trolls were originally human, but became what they are today because of the curse…”

“Then the perfect way to pass the level is very simple.”

“What we have never done is to help humans win this war between humans and demons.”

“It’s about ending this war at its source.”

“But…” Ji Xiaoyu’s expression was a little complicated, “After the trolls ate humans, can they return to being humans?”

“I don’t know the answer to this question.” Yu Zhun shook his head slightly, “Perhaps, we can get the answer from the real source of the curse.”

As he finished speaking, everyone had already arrived at the second cursed place marked on the map.

It was a tunnel located in the very center of the troll activity area. The tunnel was deep and dark, and no one knew where it led to.

As they walked in, an inexplicable cold aura enveloped everyone present, making them shiver uncontrollably.

When everyone appeared at the bottom of the tunnel, there was an altar in the suddenly clear space.

Yu Zhun couldn’t help but narrow his eyes slightly.

Compared to the altar in the holy city, the altar here is much larger.

Obviously, the source of the curse is not in the holy city, but here.

As everyone arrived, gusts of gray air surged out from the inside of the altar and gathered into a blurry gray human figure in full view of everyone.

The figure looked like a woman.

“I didn’t expect that…”

The gray figure opened its empty mouth, and voices came from every corner of the underground altar.

While speaking, the gray figure slowly shrank and turned into a child of several years old.

“You guys actually found this place.”

Then, the child grew up quickly, his straight back became hunched, and he turned into an old man with blurred outlines.

It kept changing its appearance like this, and its voice switched between various different sounds, which looked extremely weird.

Everyone looked at each other, and when they saw this weird guy, they couldn’t help but feel an inexplicable palpitation.

“You seem to be smarter than the guy in the holy city.” Seeing that the other party’s health bar was not bright, Yu Zhun was not in a hurry to attack, and slowly said, “Why do you want to turn people into trolls?”

“Why let them kill each other?”

“Why…” The gray figure sneered, “It all starts with a story that happened in this valley a long time ago.”

“This valley was once the first place where humans lived.”

“But with the advent of an unprecedented drought, humanity fell into a period of extreme food shortage.”

“They ate all the trees, became so hungry that they had to chew the dirt, and eventually… they turned their attention to their own kind.”

The gray figure spoke slowly in a creepy voice.

“In order to survive, they eat their own kind.”

“At first, they only targeted the dead, but later on, the situation got out of control and even the weak living became their food.”

“When the spring rains fell on the land, ending this unprecedented drought, only 10,000 or 20,000 people were left out of the hundreds of thousands who had lived there.”

“They survived, but they didn’t dare to face the sins they committed, and finally… chose to flee the valley.” “They built a city far away from the valley, and left the same kind they ate… here forever.”

As the gray figure finished speaking, the underground space seemed to become brighter, and everyone could see clearly that behind this huge altar were countless white bones.

The pupils of Yu Zhun and others contracted at the same time, and the timid girls in the team couldn’t help but retreat.

It was too horrifying to see the bones of hundreds of thousands of people appear in such a way. Not many of the bones were intact, and there were traces of gnawing on the broken bones.

“Hehehe~” The gray figure on the altar sneered again, “They buried this history tacitly.”

“They raised the banner of protecting the human race and built a holy city. The so-called king and great sage managed the order of the human race.”

“But do you know how that great drought came about?”

The grey figure pointed at the necklace in Yu Zhun’s hand, “That great drought was caused by the king and the great sage in order to create it.”

“They secretly extracted all the life force nearby, forming this chain of life. Thirty-six springs that provided life for human reproduction dried up at the same time. Their actions brought disaster to everyone.”

“When everyone was cannibalizing people, they never repented for their sins, let alone made the truth public. They just hid in the dark and coveted the power.”

“Although after leaving the valley, they shared a little of their strength with others in exchange for their support, but who will shed tears for the hundreds of thousands of people who died?”

“On this sinful land, there live only a group of sinners and their descendants.” The gray figure chuckled, and the sound made everyone’s hair stand on end. “They think they can cover up everything this way.”

“But they never expected that the resentment of hundreds of thousands of dead people would give birth to me, a demon formed purely of resentment.”

“I took away everything from them, turning those guys who used to eat their own kind into man-eating trolls.”

“Those who have turned into trolls are all conscious, but they cannot control their bodies. The Chain of Life has endowed them with a power that humans cannot resist. They will destroy their own race with their own hands!”

“And all this is the retribution they deserve!”

As the gray figure’s voice suddenly rose, countless white bones behind him trembled together, as if endless resentment and injustice were rushing towards them, making everyone in Yu Zhun’s team unable to help but have red eyes, and the same murderous intent and anger surged in their hearts.

“President Yu, is the way to pass the level perfectly really to save all humans and trolls instead of killing them?” Zhou Yunhao spoke in a hoarse voice, his clenched fists and a pair of bloodshot eyes showed that his emotions had been affected by the gray figure.

The others’ breathing also quickened, and they all looked angry.

Yu Zhun did not say anything. He pinched his thigh hard, forcing himself to get rid of the external emotional influence. After a moment of silence, he walked step by step towards the pile of bones behind the altar.

He picked up a piece gently, looked at the hideous teeth marks on it, and suddenly spoke softly.

“you say…”

“Are they angry because they are being used as food by their own kind, or because some bastard is confusing right and wrong right in front of them?”

“You…” A hint of hidden unnaturalness flashed in the gray humanoid’s scarlet eyes, “What do you mean?”

“What I mean is…” Yu Zhun turned his head and looked at the gray figure, “Stop pretending.”

“After saying so much, you are just trying to deceive us into giving up destroying the altar.”

“Let me ask you a few questions?”

Yu Zhun walked towards the gray figure step by step.

“Only the king and the great sage live in the holy city of mankind. So who could have lost the great sage’s treasure?”

“Who set up the cursed altar in the holy city?”

“Why is it that among the troll tribes there are ordinary trolls and elite trolls, but no one has ever seen a troll leader?”

“Where is the Great Sage now?”

“And these hundreds of thousands of bones.” Yu Zhun pointed at the piles of bones beside him and said, “When people eat people, will they chew up the bones as well?”

Every time Yu Zhun asked a question, the gray figure would involuntarily take a step back. In the end, he had retreated to the edge of the altar.

The other party’s constantly changing blurry appearance had quietly become clear at some point, turning into an old man with gray and deathly skin, wearing a tattered robe and a gilded crown on his head.

Yu Zhun calmly looked at the old man who revealed his true identity.

“You are not a demon transformed by the resentment of the dead.”

“You are a king corrupted by the devil.”

“And he!”

Yu Zhun waved his hand casually, and the piles of bones automatically separated to both sides, revealing a straight road leading to the depths of the bones and a troll at the end of the road who was trapped by chains. He was much more burly than ordinary trolls, but his eyes were full of loneliness and sadness.

“He is a great sage, and the only one who is not under your control…”

“The Troll Chieftain.”

Everyone standing behind Yu Zhun was shocked.

As Yu Zhun calmed the anger of the bones, the impact on them gradually dissipated, and they finally regained their composure. When they heard the doubts raised by Yu Zhun and saw the gray human figure that turned into the Human King and the troll chief in the depths of the bones, their expressions became shocked and confused.

“Rich woman, you asked me before how a troll that has eaten humans should deal with himself after becoming a human again.” Yu Zhun paused slightly.

“But what if trolls never ate humans?”

“He is the one who eats people.”

Yu Zhun pointed at the fallen human king and said, “The troll keeps humans captive under his control, and regularly captures people and sends them here to become his food.”

“So that’s how it is.” Ji Xiaoyu looked surprised.

If the trolls have never actually eaten humans and everything was done under duress, then after they recover as adults, there is naturally hope that they will be accepted again.

“Brother Yunhao, give this to the great sage.” Brigadier General Yu handed the necklace to Zhou Yunhao.

“Give it to him?” Zhou Yunhao hesitated. “Really?”

“Of course.” Yu Zhun smiled. “Why wouldn’t the trolls be hostile to us, but the trolls guarding the spring would be?”

“Because the trolls guarding the spring are the king’s minions. They are trying to prevent the great sage trapped deep underground from regaining the necklace.”

“This… I’ll try.”

After listening to Yu Zhun’s analysis, Zhou Yunhao took the necklace and bravely walked towards the great sage who had transformed into the troll chief.

“No!”

The fallen king showed an expression of uncontrollable rage, with murderous intent flashing in his eyes, and the entire altar shook violently.

He strode towards Zhou Yunhao, trying to stop him.

Yu Zhun stood in front of him.

“It’s time to show the health bar and hide the boss.”

(End of this chapter)