Soren Park's weapons were loot drops from zombies; without them, he had no way of obtaining more firearms.
He was convinced that his progress was far ahead of Galen Yu's.
Filled with joy, he headed back to find the alliance.
Up on the sky island, Galen Yu was organizing the haul from his latest trip.
"Thanks to that Desert Temple, I managed to get a decent amount of TNT and obsidian this time."
Looking at the TNT, a certain redstone device came to mind.
If he could build it, it should drastically reduce the danger posed by zombies.
But before that, he had one more task to complete.
Obsidian—he was going to build a Nether Portal!
In this game world, Nether Portals had specific constraints.
The smallest was the type he had built before, requiring only ten blocks.
The largest could reach 23x23, big enough to encompass an entire house.
The area covered by rails was Galen Yu's chunk, so he could choose any suitable spot nearby.
He decided to use a Nether Portal to create an emergency shelter, just in case.
The principle behind it was quite simple.
He had experimented during his spare time and found that players, chunk NPCs, or villagers required a short wait time to teleport.
Zombies, however, did not. The moment they made contact, they were instantly warped away, leaving no chance for them to actually cross through.
By using portals for defense, any zombie or monster that touched them would be instantly teleported, meaning they would never have a chance to hit Galen Yu inside.
It was essentially absolute invincibility!
As for the Nether side, he wasn't worried.
After selecting a location, Galen Yu first built a small portal to scout the Nether.
"Not bad!"
A wave of scorching heat hit him, accompanied by the familiar crimson scenery of the Nether.
The portal was located very close to a lava lake. Using the Annihilation Cube, he dug a massive pit directly beneath the portal frame.
This would isolate any zombies trying to sneak up while simultaneously channeling lava into the pit.
Returning to the sky island, his preliminary preparations were complete.
Zombies warped into the Nether would have no way back, eliminating any risk of them returning through the portal and removing any subsequent danger.
Building a massive portal was a huge undertaking, so he called the Architect over to help.
Watching the two of them busy at work, the viewers in the chat were a bit confused.
"Does anyone know what God Yu is doing now?"
"He's not building redstone devices anymore? He's starting with obsidian?"
"Obsidian is the hardest stone and can resist explosions. Is he trying to build a fortified house?"
"The layout doesn't look like a house, though. Is he setting up some kind of bedrock frame in the block world?"
"It looks more like he's building a Nether Portal, but what's the point? Is he trying to release zombies from the Nether?"
"I've been wondering since I saw God Yu mining the obsidian. I just don't get it."
They had expected Galen Yu to continue using redstone to create more miraculous machines.
The sudden shift to building a Nether Portal was truly puzzling.
Compared to the speculating domestic audience, the foreign viewers were much more blunt.
"What kind of foolishness is Galen Yu up to now?"
"The rails are already safe enough. Does he feel like there isn't enough of a challenge, so he wants to take on the Nether too?"
"The Nether has no day or night, and monsters spawn constantly. The difficulty is definitely much higher!"
"The Nine Provinces never do anything without a reason. Could there be another hidden plan?"
"Who cares about his plan? Anyway, our Soren Park got a double-barreled shotgun. He's ahead of Galen Yu now!"
"He just got lucky and found a little pistol, but we have a double-barreled shotgun!"
"Look at what Mark is doing!"
As morning arrived and the zombies perished, the first thing the alliance did was repair the chunk.
They replaced the blocks that had been destroyed by explosions and placed torches everywhere.
After breaking the monster spawner outside, Mark fell into deep thought.
After the lessons learned last night, he knew that torches alone couldn't completely stop the zombies. He needed other tools.
"What should I use... let me think... I've got it!"
In his mind, he pictured that terrifying substance that could destroy any item and formed the foundation of the Nether.
Lava!
The fact that most of the Nether was a sea of lava was proof of how terrifying the stuff was.
If he surrounded the room with a layer of it, the defensive effect would be incredible!
No sooner said than done. He shared his idea with everyone and began commanding the other players to search for lava and dig trenches.
After a brief consideration, the others agreed it was a great idea and joined the digging and searching efforts.
"A Nether Portal won't kill zombies, but lava certainly will!"
The Blonde Elder was beaming with joy outside the screen.
As expected, he hadn't been wrong—his own players were simply more outstanding than the rest!
If it had been Ronan Mountwell, that pig-brained idiot would never have thought of a lava defense so quickly.
And even compared to Galen Yu...
"I must admit, I still haven't seen any tangible benefit from that Nether Portal."
He had only ever seen monsters coming out of portals; he'd never seen monsters being forced into one.
Moreover, zombies could climb and would eventually gain other abilities.
To him, a stone wall looked no different from an obsidian or portal wall.
In contrast, his player's lava moat definitely seemed more effective.
For the Blonde Elder, the good news didn't stop there.
With the digging nearly halfway finished, they began filling the trenches outside the stone house with lava.
Kapil was the first to notice a figure outside.
"Are you... the Stick Nation player? You're still alive!"
Relieved that he wasn't seeing a ghost, Kapil's eyes immediately landed on the weapon in Soren Park's hand.
His gaze instantly sharpened with tension, and he took two steps back, switching to his own weapon.
"What is that in your hand? Put it away! What are you trying to do?!"
The shouting immediately drew the attention of the others, and Mark arrived first.
Since Soren Park held the key to the SlashBlade and had previously made bold claims on the stream, it was natural for Kapil to be nervous about a potential theft. Mark could understand that.
But was this really necessary?
Did every survivor have to be this jumpy?
With that thought, Mark quickly noticed the object in Soren Park's hand.
"A shotgun? Hiss... My God, where did you find that thing?!"
He had to admit, he was shocked too.
In the previous civilization, even bows and arrows were extremely difficult tools to obtain, yet now someone had actually produced a gun!
Satisfied with the reactions of the others, Soren Park had achieved exactly the effect he wanted.
He gave a casual response.
"It was a drop from a zombie."
"A zombie? A zombie had a gun?!"
Shocked by the news once again, Mark's brow furrowed.
He had thought skeletons were the limit; he never expected zombies to evolve to the point of using firearms!
The Second Crisis was clearly not going to be that simple.
Glancing at Ronan Mountwell, Mark's mood shifted quickly, and he flashed a smile at Soren Park.
"Haha, there were some mishaps last night, but welcome back, my ally!"
He wouldn't have given Soren Park a kind look before, but with a shotgun, the man's value had changed.
Smiling back, Soren Park played his part perfectly.
"Accidents will always happen, and no one can stop them. But I believe that through this accident, our alliance will become even more stable!"
He was signaling that he wouldn't hold a grudge and wanted to continue the alliance.
The Blonde Elder was full of smiles.
"We have gained yet another powerful ally!"
Regardless of the process, the current result was positive.
"We both have firearms now, but we have a shotgun while Galen Yu only has a pathetic little automatic pistol!"
Just as he was about to laugh, back on the sky island...
After placing the obsidian, Galen Yu brought out a Workout Bench.
Assault rifles, submachine guns, body armor... brand-new weapons were being crafted one after another in his hands.
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