The second episode of the 'Apocalypse' series?"
Zhou Ning ran the Ripple Breathing Technique several times before he managed to calm his nerves. He couldn't help but feel a little puzzled. In his memory, the second episode of the 'Apocalypse' series in his previous life was supposed to be released a few days later, because the protagonist, Leandro de Pesa, hadn't even enrolled yet.
The reason Apocalypse AI produced the 'Apocalypse' series was not only to promote the game but also to educate players about important factions and characters in the early and mid-stages.
The second episode in his previous life focused on introducing the child of the plane, Leandro de Pesa, and the Life Alchemy Society. The third episode focused on introducing the official faction, the Sun Keepers.
Now that the second episode was broadcast several days in advance, could it be due to a butterfly effect caused by him?
Zhou Ning clicked on the game panel and entered the forum. Due to increased publicity, the number of posts on the forum exploded. What surprised him most was that because of his C-position performance in the first episode's promotional video, Zhou Ning actually found that there was already a section named after him on the game forum, and it even had a dedicated moderator.
Since the forum was managed by the official game, and not related to the AI, Zhou Ning estimated that even the game officials now believed he was the game's protagonist.
As for the posts in the section... the flavor was a bit off.
At first glance, all the posts had the exact same format: [Wayne - For Wayne # Wayne Strowell], which immediately gave off an impression of excessive fan content.
There were also all sorts of fanfiction. Since there was too little information in the first episode, the protagonists were entirely based on imagination. After Zhou Ning randomly clicked on a few, he felt completely out of sorts.
The girls loved to form CPs, and Zhou Ning found that he was most often paired with Chris Bradenreiser. Other pairings were very bizarre, some paired him with Leandro de Pesa, some with Little Fatty, and even more excessively, some with Marien, or even cultists... What the hell! Zhou Ning couldn't help but feel a chill down his spine.
Clicking into the sticky post, the name of this episode was 'Alchemy Ghost'.
Zhou Ning's mouth twitched... Sure enough.
Play video.
This episode began on a snowy morning. Zhou Ning walked out of the apartment wearing a white shirt and a black vest.
The AI certainly knew how to play. It deliberately gave Zhou Ning a long-distance close-up, immediately igniting the bullet screen.
Immediately after, the plot began. Zhou Ning discovered a murder case in the woods. Sherlock, as a member of the Blystone Kingdom's official faction, the Sun Keepers, made his official appearance and communicated with Zhou Ning.
Sherlock's name popped up above his head: Sun Keepers Third Squad Captain, Meteorologist Sherlock Moriarty.
Through Zhou Ning and Sherlock's conversation, the audience learned from Zhou Ning that the killer was most likely someone from the Life Alchemy Society.
Over the next few days, Sherlock conducted a series of investigations. First, he filtered out all teachers and students from Ruins within the school, asking if they had noticed anything unusual recently. Then, through interviews, he eliminated them one by one, and it didn't take long to basically pinpoint Holwig Gay.
Through his investigation, Sherlock found out that Holwig had a girlfriend named Maggie, who had mysteriously disappeared a few days ago, and then he was also very close to the deceased, Sharon. Holwig was the only one who met all the conditions, so it only took him two days to find the killer.
The video fast-forwarded directly to the Alchemy Building late at night, where Sherlock, accompanied by two Sun Keepers, cornered Holwig Gay.
A great battle was about to erupt.
The two sides began an intense battle. Initially, under the suppression of Sherlock's meteorological abilities, Holwig was in a very awkward position, but when he started using his invisibility ability, the situation became one-sided.
The two Sun Keepers quickly died from Holwig's air bullets, and Sherlock's situation was also precarious.
Players watched with great anxiety, and even those sending bullet screens were few and far between.
This oppressive atmosphere suddenly sparked excitement among players when the camera abruptly switched to Zhou Ning.
"High energy ahead!!"
"High energy alert, please fasten your seatbelts!"
"My husband is going to save the world!"
"Good heavens, the protagonist is indeed the protagonist. His intelligence is clearly superior. Sherlock investigated for so long, but this guy seemed to have guessed who the killer was from the start and went straight to the Alchemy Building."
"Definitely. I even suspect Wayne already knew who the killer was from the very beginning."
Needless to say, these people were mostly fast-forwarders who had watched the later content and specifically returned to send bullet screens.
Zhou Ning:...Could he say these people were overthinking it? If it weren't for the system prompting the mission progress and hearing sounds, who would know the killer was in the Alchemy Building... In the video, for some unknown reason, the AI did not cut in the scene of Zhou Ning gliding in his phoenix battle suit. Instead, it directly gave a close-up of Zhou Ning in a formal suit, holding an umbrella and walking towards the Alchemy Building.
Not to mention, even Zhou Ning himself thought it was incredibly cool. This scene, if screenshotted, could totally be used as wallpaper. 99 points of charm were truly no joke.
The series continued to play... Zhou Ning pushed open the door and saw Sherlock fall down the stairs, rolling over and kneeling exactly in front of Zhou Ning, pointing his gun at him. The bullet screen was instantly covered by the same line of text: "Should I say 'No need for formalities' or'Surrender first'?"
Immediately after, a series of air bullets came, all dodged by Zhou Ning with lightning-fast movements. Then, as Zhou Ning leaned back to dodge a bullet from behind, Sherlock unleashed lightning. The AI specifically gave Zhou Ning a wide-angle close-up: while leaning back, he twisted his waist and body, and an ivory-handled revolver silently appeared in his hand, spinning once between his fingers.
The entire process was seen clearly, and it was incredibly cool.
Before the players could react, the next scene drove everyone crazy.
A ball of fire emerged from the muzzle of the revolver. Due to the AI's special close-up and slow-motion, all players could see the operation of the revolver: a finger pulled the trigger, the trigger bar pushed the hammer back, and a bullet wreathed in flames, carrying astonishing rotation, shot out from the muzzle. Because of the slow-motion, players could even see circles of ripples around the bullet, as if tearing space.
"Holy moly, I'm on my knees, what kind of skill is that?!"
"Goodness, isn't that too cool?"
"Astonished, he's just too good..."
"Damn it, I want to learn this skill too! It's really too cool!"
With Zhou Ning's appearance, the number of bullet screens significantly increased.
When Zhou Ning began to fight, the number of bullet screens even reached five times what it was a few minutes ago, showing Zhou Ning's popularity at this time.
Because, judging from the two episodes of the series broadcast so far, Zhou Ning's character perfectly fit the preferences of players, especially the girls.
Not only was he devastatingly handsome, but he was also intelligent, wise, powerful, had a good personality, and occasionally showed a sense of humor.
He was simply the perfect protagonist template.
Two minutes later, when Zhou Ning, with Sherlock's assistance, forced Holwig to reveal himself and then coldly pulled the trigger, killing the completely monstrous Holwig, the bullet screen instantly reached its climax.
"Holy cow! He's really too cool, handsome, calm, and most importantly, decisive in killing. I love it, I love it!"
"Taking my husband home again..."
"The one upstairs, stop being so infatuated, but damn, even I, a man, like him so much! Forget it, forget it, no need to be so strict about gender, taking my husband home..."
"Brothers in the video, be careful. There are more and more overflow incidents now. Boys should protect themselves when going out."
Zhou Ning:...The first half of the plot was quite depressing, it was completely like watching a detective drama, and the detective was even being beaten down. It wasn't until now that it finally felt satisfying.
Finally, when Zhou Ning picked up the diary on the ground and began to read it, the AI thoughtfully provided subtitles.
Players also understood the origin of the entire murder case and were even more deeply impressed by one of the major NPC factions in the game: the Life Alchemy Society.