99: Chapter 99 The Solution of White Night

Over three hours had passed since the raid on the Grand Temple of Time began.

Whether it was a whale party with a full roster of max-limit-break Servants, a technical party that had cleared high-difficulty Pruning Protocol, or a hastily assembled group of friends for a raid, without exception, they all met with disastrous failure!

In the center of the map, the [30,000,000] HP bar, representing the total shared health of the Demon God Pillar across the entire server, stood like an impassable Wall of Sighs.

Over three hours of frantic assaults had only resulted in the bitter failure of thousands of players.

That cold, unyielding number hadn't dropped by even a single point!

On the game forums, the initial fervent discussions about securing the world-first kill had long since vanished, replaced by a chorus of wailing and self-doubt:

"It's impossible! This is definitely a numerical bug designed by Old Thief Gu! The outer perimeter clears trash mobs too slowly, causing the center team to lose DPS, the Healer can't handle the poison damage, and the DPS can't break the armor... It's impossible to perfectly handle all five lanes simultaneously!"

"Brothers, I'm mentally broken... Our party finally managed to strip the invincibility shield, but because we didn't have the vulnerability debuff active, the center team spent forever tickling it only for the shield to respawn, and then we got crowd-controlled and stun-locked by the bugs flying out of the Hatred Incubation Furnace..."

"This broken raid requires 20 people to act like machines without making a single mistake! And have you noticed? Those buffs and debuffs have durations! If the teams don't trigger them synchronously, the buffs are all wasted! How is that even possible in this random matchmaking environment?!"

"Just go to sleep. Even if we played until the servers shut down, we wouldn't be able to clear this thirty-million HP bar. In front of the Demon God, humanity is just a joke."

Meanwhile, in a dimly lit gaming room.

The streamer recognized across the entire internet as the pinnacle of technical skill—White Night—was staring intensely at the screen before him.

His eyes were bloodshot from prolonged focus, but deep within his pupils flickered a light of near-maniacal excitement.

On his screen, dozens of raid failure recordings from different perspectives and nodes were playing simultaneously. On the workbench beside him, it was covered in dense, handwritten numerical calculations, timelines, and enemy spawn wave charts.

"So that's it... It's not a dead end."

"The raid isn't failing because of insufficient stats; it's because everyone is treating it like five single-player levels running at the same time! The shield broke too early, so the vulnerability debuff didn't stick; the vulnerability debuff stuck, but the center team got controlled by the bugs."

A smile curled at the corners of White Night's mouth: "Old Thief Gu isn't trying to crush players with stats. The true core difficulty of this raid he designed lies in two words—'Timeline Syncing'!"

White Night took a deep breath and opened the [Matchmaking Panel]. He locked his gaze onto the bottom of the lobby, on a room titled [Randoms playing blindly, disbanding once we die enough].

Inside the room, 19 strangers who didn't know each other were complaining listlessly.

"The guy from Team 4 just mentally broke and left. We're missing a person and can't start anyway, let's just disband this run."

"Yeah, I can't take it anymore either. The Berserker in Team 2 is always two hits short of breaking the Foundation Anchor, causing the whole team to get hit by the beam cannon."

"My fault? Your Team 5 let mobs leak, which caused me to run out of cost to deploy my support, so how was I supposed to one-shot the anchor point?"

Just as the team was about to fall apart, a system prompt sounded. [Player "White Night" has joined the room.]

Before everyone could even react to what this famous ID meant, a calm, low male voice came through the voice channel.

"Room leader, pass the captaincy to me. Listen to my commands, and I'll take you to get the world-first kill."

The room instantly fell into a dead silence. Then, a burst of incredulous exclamations erupted.

"Holy crap?! The great god White Night?! The one who holds the server-wide clear record?!"

"Damn! A live great god White Night! I watched your 'Pruning Protocol 33-modifier' world-first clear video, and my jaw nearly hit the floor! Great god, are you here to save us?!"

"We're set! With the great White Night commanding, we'll definitely clear this run!"

A few seconds later, the captain icon, representing supreme command, landed on White Night's avatar.

"Listen up, the reason you failed before wasn't because your stats weren't high enough, but because you had no idea what roles you were supposed to play in this raid!"

White Night's voice was like a cold scalpel, instantly suppressing the lax atmosphere. He didn't lower his standards just because they were a random team; instead, he displayed the extremely hardcore tactical proficiency of a top-tier pro player:

"Team 5, go defend the [Pseudo-Spirit Vein Tower]! Don't bring any high-burst single-target units. Fill your slots with slow-support units, AoE Casters, and Defenders with blocking skills! I don't need you to one-shot mobs; I need you to 'control the lane'! Even if you have to use your lives to fill the gap, you absolutely cannot let more mobs than your Defenders can block rush toward the exit! Only when the defensive line is stable will the whole team's Cost not run out!"

"Team 3, go to the [Hatred Incubation Furnace]! Remember, ignore those exploding bugs flying out. Throw all your Servants that can deal damage to buildings at it, and focus-fire the furnace itself immediately! Once the main body is destroyed, those annoying bugs will all disappear!"

"The most critical ones are Team 2 and Team 4, listen up!"

White Night's voice suddenly rose, carrying unquestionable authority: "Team 4, go to the [Supply Pipe], and Team 2, go to the [Foundation Anchor]! Your mission isn't to destroy them, but to—[Hold the HP line]!"

As soon as these words were spoken, all 19 players in the channel were stunned.

"Strictly control the HP of the shield generator and the Foundation Anchor to the final 5%! Then, everyone [Stop attacking]! Whether you withdraw your DPS Servants or use your Healers to tank damage with their Noble Phantasms, without my command, no one is allowed to be greedy for even a single point of damage!"

White Night's voice carried a machine-like precision: "What we need to do is ensure the vacuum period after the shield breaks and the 20% vulnerability debuff overlap in the exact same second on the most perfect timeline! If anyone can't control themselves and breaks the building early, causing the timeline to desync, all previous preparation will be ruined, and the whole team will have to take the beam cannon and restart!"

This tactical analysis, which was like a sudden enlightenment, instantly caused the nineteen players, who had previously been like headless flies, to fully understand.

So this was the correct solution to this nightmare-level raid!

"As for Team 1..."

White Night looked at the "Buster-card Nuke Team" in his formation, which he had meticulously prepared for this exact mechanic, his eyes sharp as knives.

"I will lead the team to defend the [Control Bureau] and withstand the pressure. The second all building HP is pushed to 5% and the major timeline is aligned... I will issue the order for the final assault."

"Tactical board synced! Everyone, check your Servant loadouts! Don't make any mistakes!"

"Are you all ready? Three, two, one... Launch!"

Accompanied by White Night's shout, twenty meteors once again tore through the starry sky, streaking toward that Grand Temple of Time, which stood like a forbidden zone of life!