84: The Gate of Purity? I'm sorry, we are all filthy!

Sharp alarms still echoed across the horizon, and the thousands of light-wings unfurling in the sky were like a cloud of death, slowly pressing down.

However, at this moment, blocking the path of tens of thousands of players was a problem more troublesome and disgusting than the Angelic Legion.

【Gate of Purity】.

This gate seemed carved from a single piece of flawless crystal, its entire body emitting a soft and warm Holy Light. On the lintel, three elegant ancient celestial characters were branded like works of art; just looking at it could make one feel a sense of peace and harmony.

But when that cold System prompt popped up on everyone's retinas simultaneously, this harmony instantly turned into overwhelming frustration.

【Warning: Multiple filthy attributes such as 'Greed', 'Tyranny', 'Cunning', 'Laziness', 'Lust'... have been detected in your Soul. Your purity level is negative. You may be unable to pass through this gate.】

The entire Silver Corridor fell into a dead silence.

All players subconsciously looked down at themselves.

Some were still stained with the machine oil splashed while dismantling the Icon Guardss, some had mud from the Black Iron City sewers on their pant legs, and more had backpacks stuffed with stolen goods from "zero-dollar shopping" at other people's homes.

Purity?

Did those two words have even a cent's worth of relation to them?

"Holy shit..."

Li Qiang looked down at his hands, covered in monster blood and black iron rust, then looked up at the holy gate radiating "virginal brilliance," his mouth twitching violently.

"This gate... is specifically designed to disgust us, isn't it?"

He didn't believe in such nonsense.

"What bullshit purity level! I kill monsters to save people and defend our home. Where am I not pure?!"

Li Qiang let out a roar, threw the newly acquired Energy Spear onto the ground, and pulled out his signature, weathered power hammer. He spat into his palms, swung the hammer in a full circle, and smashed it with all his might against the seemingly fragile Holy Light Barrier!

"Open up for me!"

"Weng—"

The moment the power hammer contacted the barrier, the expected loud bang didn't occur. Instead, an incredibly soft yet irresistibly firm force rebounded from the barrier.

Li Qiang's burly body was bounced away like he’d hit a giant marshmallow, tracing a pathetic arc in the air before landing on his butt over a dozen meters away.

The System prompt popped up heartlessly again: 【Detected that the target "Also a Ruthless Person" has a sin value that is too high, and the Soul filth level exceeds the threshold by 999%. Judged as "extremely impure," passage forbidden.】

"Pffft—"

Quite a few players who saw this prompt laughed out loud.

"Hahahaha! Brother Qiang is awesome! Negative 999% purity!"

"As expected of you, Brother Qiang! This gate is practically your natural enemy!"

Li Qiang's old face instantly turned the color of pig liver. He leaped up from the ground and cursed at the gate: "Bullshit! I'm clearly a model youth! What kind of detection System does this broken gate have? It must be broken!"

"Let me try!"

Lin Xiaowan stepped forward. She was a female player after all, and she usually paid attention to her image. Surely she looked a bit more "pure" than this bunch of rough men?

She took a deep breath, extended her slender hand, and cautiously touched the barrier.

"Weng—"

The same feeling, the same soft force bouncing her away.

【Detected that the target "Rich Woman Hungry" has a sin value that is too high. Soul filth level judged as "deep greed," passage forbidden.】

Lin Xiaowan's face also darkened.

"I don't accept this! I earned my money through my own ability, how is that greed?!"

Next, the players began a variety of attempts.

A Paladin player tried to resonate with the barrier using his insignificant 【Holy Light Art】, only to be bounced the furthest. The System prompt told him he was "hypocritical."

A Thief player activated stealth, trying to sneak past, but before he could even get close, he was illuminated directly out of the shadows by a beam of Holy Light, with a prompt calling him "cunning."

Even some self-proclaimed "Buddhist-style" players who usually only liked sightseeing were heartlessly bounced away, the reason being "laziness."

Physical attacks were useless, magic attacks were useless, and tech weapons hitting it was like throwing stones into the ocean.

Wang Wei controlled several mechanical spiders to scan back and forth along the edge of the barrier, the data stream behind his lenses scrolling frantically. A few minutes later, he reached a desperate conclusion.

"It's no use, everyone stop trying."

Wang Wei pushed up his glasses and said in a heavy tone over the team channel: "I've analyzed it. This barrier isn't an energy shield; it's a... conceptual defense. Its judgment logic is very simple: it only recognizes the 'purity' attribute. Any thing that doesn't fit this concept will be rejected by the rules themselves. Unless we immediately lay down our butcher's knives and become Buddhas, return everything we've stolen, and then fast and bathe for forty-nine days, no one is getting through."

These words plunged all the players into silence.

Asking them to spit out what they had already eaten? That would be more painful than killing them.

For a moment, the atmosphere in the Silver Corridor became incredibly oppressive. They had been unstoppable, killing gods and Buddhas alike, only to be blocked by a broken gate at the very end.

Just as everyone was at a loss, and some were even discussing whether to retreat and dig up the bases of those hundreds of prism towers to vent their anger...

A familiar, slightly playful System prompt sounded quietly in everyone's minds.

【Friendly Tip: Water that is too clear has no fish; a gate that is too pure has no room for filth.】

【Since it thinks you are dirty, why not... make it as dirty as you?】

These two cryptic sentences made the players collectively freeze.

What does that mean?

Make the gate as dirty as us?

After a few seconds of dead silence, a glimmer of realization first flashed in Li Qiang's eyes. Then, this light spread rapidly through the eyes of the tens of thousands of players like a virus.

Their faces gradually took on a weird expression that was a mix of "so that's how it is" and "this works too?"

"Dirty..."

Li Qiang muttered to himself, and then, he slowly opened his storage space.

His movement was like a signal.

All the players, as if sharing a single mind, opened their backpacks.

For a moment, what filled the air of the Silver Corridor was no longer a holy fragrance, but an... indescribable, complex smell full of memories and stories.

"Brothers!"

From his backpack, Li Qiang carefully pulled out a black, slightly wriggling lump. As soon as it was brought out, the surrounding players involuntarily took half a step back.

"Remember this thing?" Li Qiang introduced with a look of nostalgia. "From the Wasteland world, outside the novice village—Mutated Skunk glands! Back then, when we fought the boss, we relied on this thing to smoke it out! I couldn't bring myself to throw it away! A memento of our lost youth!"

Another veteran player beside him, not to be outdone, pulled out a tattered strip of cloth whose original color was unrecognizable.

"That's nothing! Look at this!" he displayed proudly. "A Goblin Shaman's ten-thousand-year-old oily underpants! Back then, to get this drop, I was chased across three mountains by that old Goblin! It's soaked in the fragrance of the ages!"

"Move aside! Move aside! Look at my ultimate collection!"

A lifestyle player laboriously dragged a huge sealed glass jar out of his backpack, containing a glob of yellow-green, bubbling, viscous liquid.

"From deep in the Black Iron City sewers, 【Concentrated Sludge】 that has settled for at least a thousand years! After my refining and fermentation, its lethality is more than ten times stronger than before! The moment it's opened, nothing will grow within a ten-meter radius!"

The scene instantly spiraled out of control.

The players were like participants in a unique "ugly contest," showing off their bottom-of-the-trunk, most "flavorful" treasures.

"I have fossilized feces that a Basilisk didn't finish digesting! Its hardness is comparable to diamond!"

"I have Abyssal Worm slime! Super corrosive!"

"I have a bottle of aged Goblin spit, requesting to join the battle!"

"All of yours are weak! I have smelly socks saved for half a month from our guild's collective dormitory! Fermented with magic! A true biochemical weapon!"

Wang Wei watched this group of crazy "alchemists," his mechanical eyes flashing with warning red lights. On his analyzer, the air quality index was plummeting at a vertical angle.

"Crazy... they're all crazy..." he muttered to himself. "From a sociological perspective, this collective, abnormal behavior of taking pride in 'filth' is the ultimate deconstruction and mockery of so-called 'divine authority'... This data is too precious!"

Lin Xiaowan covered her nose, backing away repeatedly, her delicate face full of disgust and... a hint of curiosity. She couldn't understand why these men would keep so many disgusting things in their backpacks.

"Alright!"

Li Qiang looked at the dazzling array of "weapons of mass destruction" before him and nodded with satisfaction. He held the Mutated Skunk gland high, like a general about to launch a charge.

"Target! Gate of Purity!"

"For the Horde! Ah, no! For the Alliance! Still not right!"

"Anyway! So that we won't be looked down upon by this broken gate anymore!"

"All forces, attack! Give it a bath!"

"Ohhhhhhh!!!"

Tens of thousands of players let out earth-shaking howls.

In the next second, countless projectiles emitting various colored lights (and smells) traced multicolored (but definitely not beautiful) parabolas through the air, smashing overwhelmingly toward the pristine Gate of Purity.

"Splat!"

The first glob of concentrated sludge accurately plastered itself onto the Holy Light Barrier.

"Sizzle—"

It was like a spoonful of cold water poured into boiling oil.

The holy, translucent barrier flickered violently the moment it touched the filth. A thick cloud of black smoke rose from the spot where it was hit, accompanied by a piercing sound like metal being corroded.

It's working!

All the players' eyes lit up.

"Brothers! Increase the intensity! Don't stop!"

"Biu~"

A player used a slingshot to precisely hang a pair of Goblin underpants on the carvings of the lintel.

"Pajie!"

A jar of yogurt that had been fermenting for who knows how many years (a Wasteland specialty) exploded on the gate, the yellowish-white liquid slowly trickling down the crystal door panels, leaving a shocking trail.

The once holy, solemn, and inviolable Gate of Purity had now become a giant target, enduring the most insane and bottomless "baptism" from the fourth calamity.

The Holy Light Barrier began to flicker violently; it was like a severe OCD patient with a germaphobia suddenly being thrown into a toilet filled with trash, its mental state struggling frantically on the edge of collapse.

It tried hard to release Holy Light, attempting to purify the filthy objects attached to its surface. But the players' "ammunition" was simply too much and too varied. Just as it purified a glob of lizard feces, three more smelly socks were plastered on; just as it decomposed a puddle of worm slime, it was hit in the face by a glob of Goblin spit.

This wasn't a battle at all; it was a one-sided, inhumane "pollution attack."

"Weng... weng... weng..."

The sound emitted by the barrier went from solemn and heavy at the start to sharp and hurried, and finally even carried a hint of... a sob?

Finally, after Li Qiang threw the last Mutated Skunk gland onto it, the Holy Light Barrier that had once barred tens of thousands of players reached its limit of "endurance."

The light on its surface flickered frantically like a burnt-out bulb, turning from pure white to dull gray, and then from dull gray to pitch black.

"Crack..."

A slight crisp sound.

A crack appeared on the barrier.

Then came a second, a third... cracks spread rapidly like a spiderweb.

Finally, accompanied by a wail that seemed like both relief and unwilling resentment.

"Weng—!!!"

The entire Holy Light Barrier collapsed with a bang, turning into a sky full of shattered light points that dissipated into the air.

That crystal gate, which was originally white and flawless like a work of art, was now unrecognizable. It was covered in multicolored, indescribable objects, emitting a mixed stench powerful enough to make even abyssal demons stay away.

"Creak—"

The overburdened gate slowly opened inward.

"We won! We won! We smoked the gate open!"

"Hahaha! I knew it! There's no problem that a glob of shit can't solve! If there is, then use two!"

The players erupted in earth-shaking cheers, preparing to swarm in and claim their new spoils of war.

However, the moment the gate fully opened to reveal the scene behind it, everyone's footsteps stopped.

Behind the gate was an even wider plaza. Hundreds of angel defenders clad in golden armor, holding light spears, and with white wings unfurled were waiting in a perfect, flawless attack formation. Their faces bore holy and cold expressions, clearly prepared to give this group of reckless Mortals a devastating head-on blow.

But before their commander could give the order to charge... an ultimate stench—a mixture of skunk glands, Goblin underpants, sewer sludge, lizard feces, and fermented smelly socks, refined, concentrated, and enhanced—swept forward from the open gate like an invisible shockwave.

The expressions of the first row of angel defenders instantly froze.

Their noses twitched slightly, and then, those eyes that had seen through the world's sins widened abruptly.

"Blegh—!"

One angel couldn't hold it in and doubled over, retching violently, even dropping his light spear on the ground.

His reaction was like the first domino falling.

The perfectly unified formation instantly disintegrated.

All the angels seemed to have been hit by a freezing spell, covering their noses with pale faces, backing away repeatedly, their noble and holy image completely gone.

An angel captain was moved to tears, one hand tightly covering his nose and mouth, the other pointing at the group of innocent-looking players outside the gate, screaming in a voice that was nearly broken and out of tune:

"Poison gas! It's a poison gas attack from Hell!!"

"Quick! Quick, activate the Air Purification Array! Hurry—!!!"